Bloomberg Law | ExxonMobil said in a late Wednesday court filing that its lawsuit against activist investors that sought a shareholder vote on the oil giant’s climate policies must go forward to stop them from pursuing similar efforts in the future.
The Houston oil company sued Arjuna Capital and Follow This in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas in January hoping to shut down their proposal that asked the company to speed up its greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The lawsuit prompted the shareholders to drop the proposal, but Exxon is persisting with its legal action and asked the court to block the investors from presenting future climate proposals.
The suit stands out because companies typically ask the US Securities and Exchange Commission to block proposals from going to a shareholder vote before going to the courts.
[…]Exxon continuing its legal action “amounts to tactics of intimidation and bullying to silence our fair ask to tackle the climate crisis,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal said.
“Clearly, Exxon does not want shareholders to vote on whether the company should accelerate its effort to reduce emissions,” van Baal said. He added that his organization “will continue to empower shareholders to vote for change at other oil and gas companies.”
The lawsuit has ruffled feathers in the investor activist community. Shareholder activists at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility sent a letter to Exxon’s board earlier this month asking members to convince the company’s management to end the lawsuit. The letter warned that the suit could set a dangerous precedent for future climate proposals.
