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NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

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Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#31

Post by radford-neal »

Hasn't Exxon been rather profitable for the last 40 years? How have the investors of 1979 lost out?

In any case, my understanding is that all of Exxon's research was publicly available, so investors could look at it and judge for themselves what they thought the risks were. The idea that Exxon executives were supposed to make their own scientific determination regarding the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate - an issue that has since then been the subject of 40 years of intensive debate in the scientific community - is absurd.

Yes, absurd. This is not a good-faith law suit. It is political intimidation and extortion.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#32

Post by qtplatypus »

tlb wrote: post #4

Source article: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24102018/exxon-climate-fr... Are there previous examples of a lawsuit over a company misleading shareholders about potential future liabilities, where the liabilities are still unknown? We still don't know how much business Exxon might lose, or how much its penalties might be, as a result of climate change. So how would you calculate which shareholders lost how much?

It is not the the future liabilities are unknown. It is that exon had information that it new that would effect those liabilities and didn’t inform the stockmarket. It isn’t up to the company to work out how much that they will loose but it is up to Exon to give the market the information they need in order to make an informed decision.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#33

Post by bdamm »

radford-neal wrote: post #31

Hasn't Exxon been rather profitable for the last 40 years? How have the investors of 1979 lost out? In any case, my understanding is that all of Exxon's research was publicly available, so investors could look at it and judge for themselves what they thought the risks were. The idea that Exxon executives were supposed to make their own scientific determination regarding the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate -…

Exxon has been profitable but they allegedly did it by committing fraud. They allegedly knew the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate, and allegedly conspired to cover it up. Part of the reason there is "intensive debate" is because of Exxon's cover up. It wouldn't have been much of a debate without it. Therefore, Exxon was purposefully redirecting the efforts of investors to understand the risks that the company faced.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#35

Post by inlined »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #25

So it's not that they've endangered the public, or maybe even the environment. It's that they deceived shareholders.

I think they’re using an interesting legal strategy here. They can use shareholder fraud to have legal standing to pull them into court, but the case prema facie rests on the acceptance of climate change.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#36

Post by radford-neal »

bdamm wrote: post #33
radford-neal wrote: post #31

Hasn't Exxon been rather profitable for the last 40 years? How have the investors of 1979 lost out? In any case, my understanding is that all of Exxon's research was publicly available, so investors could look at it and judge for themselves what they thought the risks were. The idea that Exxon executives were supposed to make their own scientific determination regarding the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate -…

Exxon has been profitable but they allegedly did it by committing fraud. They allegedly knew the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate, and allegedly conspired to cover it up. Part of the reason there is "intensive debate" is because of Exxon's cover up. It wouldn't have been much of a debate without it. Therefore, Exxon was purposefully redirecting the efforts of investors to understand the risks that the compan…

The suit alleges that the investors were defrauded - not the public, or some such. (That would also be absurd, but it isn't relevant anyway, so no point arguing about it.)

But the investors made lots of money. It doesn't make sense.

The idea that anything Exxon did had a major influence on the debate about the effect of CO2 on climate is ridiculous. Many billions of dollars have been spent on climate research by governments. Are we to believe that a few scientists at Exxon had it all figured out 40 years ago? And then because Exxon executives didn't decide their product was evil and therefore exit the industry, nobody else realized the truth, even though the reports by the Exxon scientists were published...?

It doesn't make sense.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#37

Post by [deleted] »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #22
losteric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lied to the public about side effects of their product. That's ridiculously illegal.

Maybe they did, but this lawsuit isn't about that. The lawsuit claims only that they lied to investors about how they were managing the financial risks of increased climate regulation.

[deleted]

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#38

Post by smt88 »

ta20938 wrote: post #11
heyoni wrote: post #5

Does this stuff ever get us anywhere? I just looked at the AG's website and it looks like we're constantly suing every high powered entity in America: https://ag.ny.gov

Many of the undertakings that happen at the state level require a functioning federal government for them to go anywhere. We do not have a functioning federal government, so here we are.

Our federal government works shockingly well for its size and scope. Dealing with the State Dept to replace a passport at the last minute was one of the best customer service experiences I've had in years.

The parts that are not functioning are the legislature and executive branch.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#39

Post by smt88 »

Bostonian wrote: post #17

This is ridiculous. For decades, New Yorkers, like all Americans, have enjoyed the benefits of cheap energy. Exxon and other oil companies are giving consumers what they want.

You could make the same argument about tobacco companies and it would be equally weak.

Even if this case were about whether Exxon was supplying a demand, which is dubious (most of their consumers were industrial, and individuals had no other options), they still suppressed research about the environmental impact of the product.

You can't argue "free market" when the seller is part of an oligopoly and abused its enormous power to misinform the public and buy politicians.

Re: NY State alleges ExxonMobil knew risks of climate change and defrauded investors

#40

Post by bdamm »

radford-neal wrote: post #36
bdamm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exxon has been profitable but they allegedly did it by committing fraud. They allegedly knew the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on climate, and allegedly conspired to cover it up. Part of the reason there is "intensive debate" is because of Exxon's cover up. It wouldn't have been much of a debate without it. Therefore, Exxon was purposefully redirecting the efforts of investors to understand the risks that the compan…

The suit alleges that the investors were defrauded - not the public, or some such. (That would also be absurd, but it isn't relevant anyway, so no point arguing about it.) But the investors made lots of money. It doesn't make sense. The idea that anything Exxon did had a major influence on the debate about the effect of CO2 on climate is ridiculous. Many billions of dollars have been spent on climate research by gove…

Fraud is making money by lying. The fact that the investors made money doesn't negate the fraud. They were unaware of risks that the company knew about. Public companies (emphasis on public) are required to reveal to all investors the risks of investing in the company. Read any prospectus and you will see that they don't generally hold back, and in many cases go into specific and extensive detail on known risks.
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