"Exxon, New York prosecutors face off in climate change fraud trial", 22 October 2019

A lawyer for New York’s attorney general on Tuesday told a state judge Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) used two sets of books to hide the true cost of climate change regulations from investors, while an attorney for the oil major assailed the claims as false and politically motivated.

The lawyers’ opening statements kicked off a long-awaited trial in a civil lawsuit filed by the attorney general last year accusing Exxon of defrauding investors out of up to $1.6 billion. 

The trial, expected to last up to three weeks, will take place before Justice Barry Ostrager in Manhattan Supreme Court without a jury and could feature testimony from Rex Tillerson, who served as Exxon chief executive officer and U.S. Secretary of State…

The lawsuit claimed Exxon falsely told investors it had properly evaluated the impact of future climate regulations on its business using a “proxy cost” of up to $80 per ton of carbon emissions, but internally used figures as low as $40 per ton or none at all…

Theodore Wells, a lawyer for Exxon, said that after Tillerson became chief executive in 2006, the company put in place a “robust system” to manage the risk of increasing climate change…

Wells also accused former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of bringing the case for political reasons.…

Massachusetts is separately investigating whether Exxon concealed its knowledge of the role fossil fuels play in climate change.

…. [They] began investigation Exxon after news reports in 2015 saying company scientists had determined that fossil fuel combustion must be reduced to mitigate the impact of climate change.