Exxon's Unusual Legal Move: Suing Its Own Shareholders

Mark van Baal is a Dutch climate activist who spent years deploying a wonky but effective tactic—buying small amounts of stock in oil companies to file shareholder resolutions pushing them to cut emissions. As Chris Walker explains at the Lever, this inside-the-system strategy had been gaining traction as a way to get major energy companies to rethink emissions. But when van Baal and his nonprofit targeted Exxon with a similar measure in 2023, the company escalated dramatically by dragging van Baal's tiny nonprofit (Follow This) and his US partner Arjuna Capital into court. Essentially, the company took the highly unusual step of suing its own shareholders in an effort to stop the resolution altogether.

Walker traces the bigger-picture arc: early wins pressuring Shell, BP, and US firms to adopt emissions targets; Wall Street's brief embrace of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement; then a coordinated backlash, state-level anti-ESG laws, and Exxon's aggressive legal move. Even after Follow This withdrew its proposal, Exxon pushed ahead until Arjuna pledged never to file another climate resolution at the company—a case many observers fear has chilled environmental shareholder activism across corporate America. Van Baal, meanwhile, is still in the game but rethinking his playbook. "We just have to change one oil major," he says. "Because if just one of them shows that you can be profitable while transitioning to renewables, customers will reward it, shareholders will reward it—then the rest will follow." Read the full story.