"The secretive cabal of US polluters that is rewriting the EU’s human rights and climate law"

Leaked documents reveal how a secretive alliance of eleven large multinational enterprises has worked to tear down the EU’s flagship human rights and climate law, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The mostly US-based coalition, which calls itself the Competitiveness Roundtable, has targeted all EU institutions, governments in Europe’s capitals, as well as the Trump administration and other non-EU governments to serve its own interests. With European lawmakers soon moving ahead to completely dilute the CSDDD at the expense of human rights and the climate, this research exposes the fragility of Europe’s democracy.

Leaked documents obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’, these companies plotted to hijack democratically adopted EU laws and strip them of all meaningful provisions, including those on climate transition plans, civil liability, and the scope of supply chains. EU officials appear not to have known who they were up against. But the documents obtained by SOMO show a high level of organisation and strategising with a clear facilitator: Teneo, a US public relations and consultancy company.

The documents indicate that many of the companies involved wanted to stay hidden from view. After all, if it were widely known that a secretive group of mostly American fossil fuel companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Koch, Inc. was working as a coordinated organisation to dilute an EU climate and human rights law, that might raise questions and serious concern among the public and the policymakers they were targeting. Many of the companies in the Roundtable have never publicly spoken out against the CSDDD. [...]

The documents reveal that the Roundtable companies’ activities in the Parliament are far more significant than what is visible in the EU Transparency Register. Eight of the Roundtable’s lobbying meetings during the Strasbourg plenary sessions of May and June 2025, listed in the Transparency Register, show Teneo as the only attendee, thereby failing to disclose the names of other Roundtable companies that participated in these meetings. Another three meetings the Roundtable held were not found in the EU Transparency Register at all. [...] 

In the European Council, the Roundtable plotted to “divide and conquer” EU governments to get the climate article in the CSDDD deleted. [...]

Additionally, the documents reveal that the Roundtable is still aiming to drum up a “blocking minority” to overturn the Council’s negotiation mandate during the trilogue negotiations, which started in November 2025. By “tak[ing] advantage of the ‘weak’ Council negotiating mandate” and disagreements between EU Member States on “contentious articles”, the Competitiveness Roundtable companies hope to force the Danish Council presidency to give up on including any form of climate obligations in the CSDDD [...].

To implement the divide-and-conquer strategy, the Roundtable assigned specific companies to “establish rapporteurships” with different EU governments. [...]

The Roundtable also discussed working on “circumvent[ing]” two “stubborn” European Commission departments involved in the Omnibus political process, DG JUST and DG FISMA, which, in their view, were “unlikely to be willing to see our side of the story”. [...]

In the European Parliament, the Roundtable companies aimed to “ensure the most extreme position” on the CSDDD by getting the European People’s Party (EPP) to break with the centrist majority and “secure a right-leaning majority” in the Parliament instead. [...]

Though not illegal, the Roundtable’s activities represent more than just a well-executed corporate lobbying strategy. [...] Policymakers in Brussels and Europe’s capitals seem all too eager to let their ears hang to the demands of a small but powerful group of polluting multinationals as soon as they whisper the terms “competitiveness” and “simplification”. It underscores just how fragile Europe’s democracy is.

If the EU is serious about ensuring its sovereignty and upholding liberal democracy, in a world where these values are under severe pressure, opaque groups of big polluters must be excluded from EU lawmaking. Serving the interests of Big Oil and the Trump administration does not increase the EU’s “competitiveness” or strengthen the EU’s position in the world. On the contrary, it makes clear just how little it takes to subdue the EU’s democratic principles. What is needed now is an EU that dares to stand up to corporate capture, defends the rights of workers and communities, and protects the climate. That would place the EU in a clear and strong position, not beholden to vested interests.

SOMO invited all Roundtable companies and TEHA Group to respond to the findings in this article. Only Teneo, TotalEnergies, and TEHA Group responded. FT SustainableViews, in their coverage (€) of the research, provide comments from ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, and report all companies have been contacted, with JPMorgan Chase declining to comment.