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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

So it's not that they've endangered the public, or maybe even the environment. It's that they deceived shareholders.

I think they’re using an interesting legal strategy here. They can use shareholder fraud to have legal standing to pull them into court, but the case prema facie rests on the acceptance of climate change.

Yes. I agree. It's the Al Capone strategy. But the fact remains, shareholders are more protected than the environment and/or the public.

We're 20 yrs into the 21 century FFS. You'd think we'd woken up already.

Who else would sue? The EPA, which is currently headed by a self-professed climate change denier?

I would be surprised if the NY AG didn’t run for president some day. They clearly seem intent on finding creative ways to do others’ jobs. E.g. the sting on supplements that’s didn’t contain their supposed ingredients (FDA, which should at least close loopholes in this kind of fraud), promises to prosecute Trump for tax evasion (IRS), and fraud over climate change (EPA)

Does it rely on acceptance? If ExxonMobil's research indicated their business had serious risks relating to climate change, and they failed to disclose those risks to shareholders, does it matter whether their research later on turned out to be right or not? Isn't the main claim here that they chose not to disclose information that they fully believed was correct?

Luckily Exxon can’t deny climate change based on their own research done the past couple dozen years.

Unfortunately environmental protection laws are relatively weak in this country. Fortunately shareholder protection laws are relatively strong. So the attorney general, like a good lawyer, goes for the cause of action that will give him a high chance of success.

Shareholders are the public, it's a public company.

That's true, but it's very much biased towards the rich[1]. I think what the parent is trying to say is that the only reason this issue got legal action was because the rich were the primary victims. Had it been some other public issue that doesn't disproportionately affect the rich (eg. fracking/mining contaminating ground water), there wouldn't be similar action.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-richest-1-own-50-of-stock...

If this were about shareholders, it would be a shareholders lawsuit, not an attorney general lawsuit. This is about (in theory) distorting the public market through fraud.

Nice job dehumanising anyone who is not well-off enough to afford risky investments. Vast majority of people who participate in this system will never be able to own shares by design. So 80-90% of people are not the public?

Shareholders are a subset of the public. I'm probably a member of the class, because I likely hold some shares of Exxon indirectly through index funds.

> "Shareholders are the public, it's a public company."

Yes, they are a subset of the broader public, but it's unlikely they are a representative sample of the whole. In fact, being shareholders immediately bakes a bias into their thoughts and actions. That bias alone separates them from The Public.

Yes, they are members of the public. No, they are not synonymous with The Public.

> So it's not that they've endangered the public, or maybe even the environment.

And they haven't. You did. (Plural You if that wasn't obvious.)

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