Compounding their significant climate and environmental harms, fossil fuels are also volatile commodities. In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted the supply of natural gas, causing prices to spike. More recently, the United States’ war on Iran resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most […]
Cynthia Hanawalt
29 posts
Corporate coordination to mitigate climate change raises complex questions for competition policy. From a structural antitrust perspective, climate alliances comprised of large asset managers can raise the specter of unaccountable “private governance,” if effectively imposing clean-energy restraints across an entire sector. But from an econometric perspective, which seeks to optimize […]
Last week, Texas v. BlackRock (E.D. Tex.), the first antitrust case challenging climate collaborations by financial institutions, reached an initial resolution. Texas Attorney General (“AG”) Ken Paxton announced that one of three institutional-investor defendants, Vanguard, had settled. As part of the settlement, Vanguard pledged not to “direct” its portfolio companies’ […]
Texas v. BlackRock (E.D. Tex.) (BlackRock), a case in which 13 states claim that the institutional-investor defendants colluded to profit through coordinated output reductions at coal companies they partially owned, remains in its early stages, with discovery continuing through 2027. Already however, opponents of climate-risk mitigation have rushed to extract […]
A now-familiar playbook for climate-denying state attorneys general is to launch burdensome investigations of climate-minded corporate enterprises based on inchoate antitrust claims (often conspicuously lacking a profit motive for the alleged antitrust violations). These enforcement tactics crystallize two challenges for corporate climate initiatives seeking to steer clear of antitrust liability. […]
Climate alliances have become a common target of antitrust campaigns over the last several years, particularly given the complex market dynamics for these alliances to navigate, with effective industry-wide transformation often necessitating some degree of coordination among competitors. In previous blog posts, we have addressed state legislatures’ efforts to undermine […]
In recent years, roughly 30 nations have implemented regulatory regimes that mandate some type of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure from corporations. As GHG emissions disclosure regimes continue to take hold, several key questions arise: will they prompt meaningful and sustained GHG emissions reductions, or will they merely serve to […]
With anti-ESG forces ascendant in national government, and federal agencies neglecting or outright reversing even modest regulatory efforts to address climate risks, fossil-fuel industry supporters have expanded their agenda at the state level. Through 100+ statehouse bills introduced this year, the anti-ESG agenda has moved beyond an initial targeting of […]