Compliance » Chevron Sues A Brother Oil Company In Global Warming Fracas

Chevron Sues A Brother Oil Company In Global Warming Fracas

February 8, 2018

Stormy sky

The logic is unusual, but it’s logic just the same. Chevron has filed a third-party lawsuit against Statoil ASA, the Norwegian state oil company (majority owned by Norway). This follows a climate change and sea-level-rise lawsuit filed in the name of California residents against Chevron and numerous other oil industry giants, but not including Statoil. “Chevron,” says its complaint, “denies that Plaintiffs are entitled to any relief on their Complaints. However, in the event that Chevron is held liable to Plaintiffs, Chevron is entitled to indemnity and/or contribution from Statoil.” The rationale for this lawsuit likely is in part procedural, says a Legal Newsline article, quoting a statement from the company: “Statoil’s presence,” it says, “indicates the global nature of the issues and the necessity of the federal courts to properly maintain jurisdiction over the lawsuits.” Chevron’s tactics in terms of aggressiveness are comparable to strategy that’s been employed by ExxonMobil, another defendant in the CA litigation, as explained in another Legal Newsline article published in Forbes. ExxonMobil in its lawsuit accuses government officials in some CA jurisdictions of failing to disclose climate change risk in certain bond offerings – thereby, in addition to contradicting their own ostensible views on climate change, misleading potential investors. As for the larger issue of climate change, in its carefully worded complaint Chevron makes its case that, to the extent climate change may be taking place and is caused or exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels, the responsible parties include not only other producers, but investors, manufacturers, sovereign states, other government entities “and individuals around the world who actually consume and burn the fossil fuels that Plaintiffs allege give rise to global warming and the sea-level rise of which Plaintiffs complain.” Green house gases, the complaint somewhat archly points out, “generally are not released from fossil fuels until the fuels are burned or otherwise consumed.”

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