On April 3, 2025, a Texas state appeals court reversed a trial court order awarding Exxon Mobil $25 million under an umbrella insurance policy issued by Lexington Insurance Co. to Brock Services Ltd. The appeals court found...more
The Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals upheld summary judgment for Exxon Mobil corporation in Stanley Cole v. Exxon Mobil Corp. (No. 14-22-00756-CV), a premises liability case involving alleged exposure to olivine dust. The...more
In the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, the Biden FTC rushed to initiate major lawsuits and to tie a bow on various antitrust policy efforts. In a series of dissenting statements, the minority Republican...more
The White House announced on Monday that President Joe Biden would ban new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the U.S. coastline. The order will protect 625 million acres of ocean along America’s Atlantic and Pacific...more
Recently, in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. United States (No. 3:22-cv-00515), a District Court in Texas ruled that the taxpayer was entitled to interest deductions on a production loan entered into as part of a multibillion-dollar...more
Earlier this week, in what almost certainly has to be the most fractured appellate decision in the history of the United States courts, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, affirmed via per curiam decision the...more
ExxonMobil recently announced plans to build cleaner natural gas power plants specifically for data centers, marking a significant milestone in the energy industry's response to surging demand for data center power....more
Here are curated AG and federal regulatory news stories highlighting key areas in which state and federal regulators’ decisions are having an impact across the US: •California Sues Exxon for Allegedly Fueling Plastics...more
ExxonMobil sued by California AG and environmental nonprofits over plastic waste - California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of environmental nonprofit entities sued ExxonMobil on Monday, accusing the company...more
On September 22, 2024, the State of California Department of Justice announced that it filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco County Superior Court against ExxonMobil “for allegedly engaging in a decades-long campaign of...more
California AG Rob Bonta sued global energy giant ExxonMobil Corporation for allegedly deceiving the public about the recyclability of plastic products and creating a global plastics pollution crisis in violation of state...more
Back in the 1970s, US Congress passed laws that allow private parties to bring citizen suits to enforce federal environmental laws. While those statutes have not significantly been amended, changes in both administrative law...more
In January, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against Arjuna Capital, LLC and Follow This, the two proponents of a climate-related shareholder proposal submitted to Exxon, seeking a declaratory judgment that it may exclude their...more
On May 30, 23 Senators signed a letter to the Attorney General, calling on the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division to “use every tool” to investigate the oil industry for potential violations of the Sherman...more
The United States, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (“AGFC”), and Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment – Division of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) entered into a Consent Decree with ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, LLC...more
When we last checked in on the ExxonMobil litigation against Arjuna Capital, LLC and Follow This—in which Exxon sought a declaratory judgment that it may exclude the two defendants’ proposal from its 2024 annual meeting proxy...more
ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance.” Though often overlooked, two recent cases — Spence v. American Airlines and Exxon v. Arjuna Capital, LLC — focus on G’s place in the ESG initialism. Here, we break...more
In the February edition of our Public Company Watch, we cover key issues impacting public companies, including Exxon Mobil filing a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment to exclude a shareholder proposal from Arjuna...more
During arguments on Wednesday in the most significant environmental dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court this year, the Court's conservative justices expressed skepticism over the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to...more
You remember that, in January, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against Arjuna Capital, LLC and Follow This, two proponents of a climate-related shareholder proposal submitted to Exxon, seeking a declaratory judgment that it may...more
ExxonMobil has filed proceedings in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas against two shareholders, alleging that proposals seeking an increased pace for reductions in emissions amount to “intrusion” into...more
ExxonMobil (“Exxon”) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Sunday, January 21, 2024, seeking a declaratory judgment to exclude a shareholder proposal from its proxy statement...more
Over the past few years, activist investors have submitted a number of shareholder proposals to major fossil fuel companies concerning issues relating to climate change. Recently, two such investors submitted a proposal...more
Back in 2014, a few companies, facing shareholder proposals from the prolific shareholder-proposal activist, John Chevedden, and his associates, adopted a “direct-to-court” strategy, bypassing the standard SEC no-action...more