ExxonMobil is having a very bad week.
The oil giant was slammed Wednesday with a ruling against it from New York’s highest court in the ongoing climate fraud investigation, as well as a scathing report from a financial analysis firm that suggested the company’s fortunes may be in “irreversible decline.”
The New York State Supreme Court ordered the oil behemoth to comply with the New York attorney general’s subpoena seeking documents relating to the charge that the company hid what it knew about climate change from investors for decades. Exxon attempted to block the subpoena earlier this month.
New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman filed the subpoena on October 14 with Exxon’s accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), because Exxon had argued that the documents in question were protected by a Texas statute that meant they fell under “accountant-client privilege.”
In its ruling (pdf), the state Supreme Court characterized Exxon’s interpretation of the Texas statute as “flawed” and wrote that New York law, rather than Texas law, applied to the New York attorney general’s fraud investigation.