ExxonMobil has been having a hard time convincing non-Texas-based judges to buy what they are selling when it comes to lawsuits filed by New York and Massachusetts attorneys general Eric Schneiderman and Maura Healey. Last week a New York judge ordered the oil giant to turn over a couple million documents to the New York Attorney General’s office. On Friday, Schneiderman’s office filed a memorandum in support of their cross-motion to stop Exxon from denying them further access to the oil giants backlog of records.
Exxon’s motion to quash is the latest maneuver in its longstanding strategy to avoid and delay the production of documents, information, and testimony directly relevant to OAG’s investigation. Despite Exxon’s obstruction and obfuscation, OAG’s investigation has persisted, and based on the evidence that Exxon has produced, the investigation has gained urgency. That evidence suggests not only that Exxon’s public statements about its risk management practices were false and misleading, but also that Exxon may still be in the midst of perpetrating an ongoing fraudulent scheme on investors and the public. Accordingly, OAG’s cross-motion to compel should be granted and Exxon’s motion to quash should be denied in its entirety.
Arstechnica explains what this new angle of fraud is:
According to the attorney general, Exxon was assuring its investors that it was using a “proxy cost” for GHGs, including any fees or penalties that governments might impose to mitigate the impact of climate change, to calculate the viability of certain investments. However, the filing claims the company directed its employees to ignore the proxy cost or apply it in unrealistic ways to make those investments seem better than they were. "Exxon's own documents suggest that if Exxon had applied the proxy cost it promised to shareholders, at least one substantial oil sands project may have projected a financial loss, rather than a profit, over the course of the project’s original timeline," the filing claims.
Remember how our secretary of State and former CEO of ExxonMobil told everybody he only took his new job because his wife said God wanted him to take it?
"When he asked me at the end of that conversation to be secretary of state, I was stunned," Tillerson said in the interview. Tillerson added that he then returned home to his wife who shook her finger in his face and said: "I told you God's not through with you."
Maybe his wife thinks that “God” is New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.