US Judge Dismisses - W. Prejudice - Exxon Suit Against MA, CA Probes Of Its Climate Lies

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed Exxon Mobil Corp’s (XOM.N) lawsuit seeking to stop New York and Massachusetts from probing whether the oil and gas company covered up its knowledge about climate change and lied to investors and the public about it.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan rejected as “implausible” Exxon’s argument that the states’ Democratic attorneys general, Eric Schneiderman and Maura Healey, were pursuing politically motivated, bad faith fraud investigations in order to violate its constitutional rights. Caproni dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the Irving, Texas-based company cannot bring it again.

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Much of Exxon’s case was based on a March 2016 news conference with the attorneys general and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, which it called a bid to coerce its adoption of policies that they and climate change activists preferred. Caproni, however, said “nothing that was said can fairly be read to constitute declaration of a political vendetta against Exxon.”

She said the belief by Schneiderman and Healey, “apparently” shared by Exxon, that climate change is real does not mean they had no reason to believe Exxon may have fraudulently “sowed confusion” to bolster its bottom line. Nowhere, she said, did Exxon suggest that the attorneys general believed the company “was itself confused about the causes or risks of climate change.”

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-lawsuit/u-s-judge-dismisses-exxon-lawsuit-to-stop-climate-change-probes-idUSKBN1H536R

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