01/17/2025

ExxonMobil sues Bonta, environmental groups for defamation

Plastics News | Steve Toloken | Jan. 7, 2025

ExxonMobil sues Bonta, environmental groups for defamation

ExxonMobil Corp. sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several environmental groups Jan. 6, accusing them of defaming the company's chemical recycling technologies for political and financial gain.

The 40-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that Bonta and the environmental groups — including the Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation — are part of a coordinated campaign supported by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest and his Minderoo Foundation, which has been active in plastics debates.

It's the latest in a series of legal fights between Bonta and the plastics industry, and can be seen as a response to lawsuits that Bonta and the nongovernmental organizations filed in 2024 accusing ExxonMobil of misleading the public over decades about the potential of plastics recycling.

ExxonMobil, however, said the legal claims and public statements from Bonta and the NGOs allied with him have harmed the company's attempts to build its chemical recycling business.

"This is a suit about a state office holder's abuse of the public trust," ExxonMobil's lawsuit said. "It is also a case about the corrupting influence of foreign money in the American legal system and about the sordid for-profit incentives and outright greed that tries to hide behind so-called public impact litigation."

"It is about false statements by people who — while purporting outwardly to serve the public interest — instead serve private foreign interests," the lawsuit continued.

Specifically, ExxonMobil said that a Minderoo entity, the Intergenerational Environment Justice Fund, hired lawyers to bring a September 2024 plastics-related lawsuit from NGOs against ExxonMobil at the same time that Bonta brought a similar lawsuit.

ExxonMobil said the organizations' law firm, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, was required by the U.S. Department of Justice to register as a foreign agent because of its relationship with IEJF, under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

"Bonta and the U.S. proxies — the former for political gain and the latter pawns for the foreign interests — have engaged in a deliberate smear campaign against ExxonMobil, falsely claiming that ExxonMobil's effective and innovative advanced recycling technology is a 'false promise' and 'not based on truth,'" the lawsuit said.

Harming chemical recycling investments

The plastics maker also alleged that misleading statements from Bonta and the NGOs have cost it business as it tries to develop its portfolio of resins made with chemical recycling, or advanced recycling, as the company calls it.

"As a result of defendants' false statements, major international brands have refused to jointly promote advanced recycling with ExxonMobil," the company said. "Potential customers have expressed concern and hesitancy to work with ExxonMobil and explicitly referenced statements by Bonta and the U.S. proxies as the cause of that concern.

"And, a number of companies have backed out of proposed transactions with ExxonMobil for advanced recycling," the plastics maker said.

Bonta, however, said ExxonMobil was trying to shift attention away from its actions.

"This is another attempt from ExxonMobil to deflect attention from its own unlawful deception," the California Department of Justice said, in a statement. "The attorney general is proud to advance his lawsuit against ExxonMobil and looks forward to vigorously litigating this case in court."

The Sierra Club said ExxonMobil is trying to intimidate the NGOs and is "clearly confused about the difference between defamation and accountability."

"This lawsuit is a shameless attempt at intimidation by a multibillion-dollar polluter corporation that covered up its climate change denial for decades," the group said. "The Sierra Club will not sit back as ExxonMobil attempts to use their billions to bully those standing up for the health of working families."

Minderoo connections

The ExxonMobil lawsuit accused Bonta of attacking the company to raise money for his political campaigns, and it said that lawyers at the Cotchett law firm have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Bonta's campaigns.

The lawsuit also alleges that IEJF is motivated to support the NGO lawsuit because of an unrelated business competition between Andrew Forrest and ExxonMobil.

The suit said that Forrest's main company, the global iron ore conglomerate Fortescue, has been trying to expand its business in low-carbon energy markets, where ExxonMobil is also investing. Fortescue is one of the world's largest iron ore producers.

"Fortescue funds Minderoo, which owns and controls the IEJF, which hired an American law firm to bring claims against ExxonMobil on behalf of the U.S. proxies," ExxonMobil said.

ExxonMobil is asking the court to award damages and issue an injunction requiring Bonta and the NGOs to "retract their defamatory statements and to cease interfering" in the company's business relationships.

The lawsuit also includes details of what it said was a campaign by Forrest in 2019 to convince the plastics resin industry to voluntarily put fees on virgin resin to make recycled materials more competitive.

After the resin industry and retail brands rejected that —ExxonMobil said it would have violated U.S. antitrust laws —the lawsuit said Forrest became a "strident" critic of the plastics industry.

Minderoo has continued to support the resin fee idea, including working with countries that support it within the global plastics treaty talks.

The ExxonMobil lawsuit also names the groups Heal the Bay and Baykeeper.

In a statement, Minderoo said the ExxonMobil lawsuit incorrectly states that Minderoo owns and controls IEJF: "Minderoo is a philanthropy which is independent of the Intergenerational Environment Justice Fund."

Minderoo said it works to reduce the production of plastic because of its "devastating impact" on human health, impacting birth outcomes, childhood neurodevelopment and reproductive health.

It said its research shows that ExxonMobil topped the list of companies producing resin for single-use plastics, and argued that recycling alone will not do enough: "It is clear that recycling is not an effective means to curb environmental and human health harms of plastics."