NY Times: Chevron Aims at an Activist Shareholder
New York Times business writer Gretchen Morgenson has written a column regarding Trillium’s shareholder engagement with Chevron Corporation, and the subpoena we recently received from the oil company related to its nearly 20-year legal battle with indigenous populations in the Amazon rainforest. The long-running court case alleges that Texaco, which merged with Chevron 10 years ago, destroyed huge tracts of the rainforest by dumping billions of gallons of oil waste products over several decades. Morgenson writes: “Public corporations routinely tell shareholders that their views matter. The Chevron Corporation, for example, said in its 2012 proxy statement: ‘Your board welcomes dialogue …
Large Investor Coalition Urges Chevron to Explore Settlement in Rainforest Pollution Lawsuit; Related Shareholder Proposal Gets 25% of Vote
“The entire case is looming like a hammer over shareholders’ heads. Chevron should start fresh with a new approach that embraces environmental responsibility and risk management as part of its corporate culture. More legal proceedings will only delay the inevitable.” ~ New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli …
Trillium Asks Securities and Exchange Commission to Investigate Chevron Corporation’s Disclosures Re Historic Ecuadorian Judgment
Contact: Shelley Alpern, Trillium (617) 292-8026, x 248 Jonas Kron, Esq., Trillium (503) 592-0864 Sanford Lewis, Esq. (413) 549-7333 Boston, MA, May 23, 2011 – Trillium Asset Management (“Trillium”) has requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) undertake a staff review to examine whether Chevron Corp. has appropriately disclosed to its shareholders the scope and magnitude of financial and operational risk from a recent adverse legal judgment in Ecuador. In its letter, Trillium states its belief that the issues raised may have “the potential to rise to the level of materiality under the securities laws.” After nearly two decades …
Chevron – Environmental Oversight (2011)
WHEREAS Environmental expertise is critical to the success of companies in the energy industry because of the significant environmental issues associated with their operations. Shareholders, lenders, host country governments and regulators, and affected communities are focused on these impacts. A company’s inability to demonstrate that its environmental policies and practices are in line with internationally accepted standards can lead to difficulties in raising new capital and obtaining the necessary licences from regulators. Chevron has repeatedly been cited for allegedly harmful environmental practices: Chevron is on trial in Ecuador for widespread contamination of Amazonian land and water resources by Texaco in …
Goodbye to BP
Shelley Alpern BP? We’re out of it. With the benefit of perfect hindsight, I wish we’d sold before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe; this wasn’t the first lethal BP disaster in recent years. We could also see the company’s commitment to shareholder engagement on environmental, social and governance matters (ESG) slipping as well, but were hoping that the collective efforts of the social investment community could turn that around. We held out hope because BP is still the oil and gas company with the lowest carbon footprint (it was the first to acknowledge the reality of global warming) and maintains a …
Chevron – Environmental Oversight (2010)
WHEREAS Environmental expertise is critical to the success of companies in the energy industry because of the significant environmental issues associated with their operations. Shareholders, lenders, host country governments and regulators, and affected communities are focused on these impacts. A company’s inability to demonstrate that its environmental policies and practices are in line with internationally accepted standards can lead to difficulties in raising new capital and obtaining the necessary licences from regulators. Chevron has repeatedly been cited for allegedly harmful environmental practices: Chevron is on trial in Ecuador for widespread contamination of Amazonian land and water resources by Texaco in …
Chevron Liability in Ecuador Pollution Case Approaches $27 Billion
Court Judgment Expected This Year by Shelley Alpern Five years ago, I had the privilege of getting a firsthand look at the evidence in one of the most important lawsuits being heard anywhere in the world. The exhibits are a number of oily pits and ponds scattered throughout the state of Sucumbios, Ecuador, right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The contamination is allegedly the work of Texaco, the first petroleum company to break ground in Ecuador in the early 1970s. The court case is being heard in Lago Agrio, a sad-looking town whose many ramshackle buildings look far …
Statement on Recent Developments in Aguinda v. Texaco
Trillium Asset Management Corporation Statement on Recent Developments in Aguinda v. Texaco December 4, 2008 Contact: Shelley Alpern (617) 292-8026, x 248 On November 26, 2008, the court-appointed expert charged with assessing Chevron’s liability for damages in connection with Aguinda v. Texaco raised that figure by two-thirds, from $16.3 billion assessed in April to $27 billion. Richard Cabrera had concluded in a 4,000 page report to the court last spring that 100% of Chevron’s former sites are extensively contaminated with cancer-causing toxins, and that an earlier clean-up Texaco claimed it had completed was ineffective. Texaco, which dumped more …
2008 Advocacy Review
For our 2008 advocacy efforts, we’re pleased to report a fair amount of progress — never as much as we’d like (we’d like superhero powers), but enough to confirm that shareholder activism remains a potent tool for change. Climate change. Our shareholder resolution at ConocoPhillips requesting a report on the environmental and social impacts of tar sands drilling won almost 28% of the vote, an impressive vote in this arena. Our resolution at Bank of America addressing its financing of coal-fired power plants and mountaintop coal removal was deemed inadmissible by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but we eventually …
No Surprises, Please: How an Outdated Regulation Shields the True Extent of Corporate Liabilities
Four years ago, Merck‘s blockbuster anti-anflammatory drug Vioxx came under intense scrutiny. The highly profitable medication was discovered to be closely linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and a flood of litigation followed. The rise and fall of the product was of historic proportions, not only for the company, but for the drug market as well. When it was pulled from pharmacies in September of that year, it was one of the most widely used drugs ever to be withdrawn in the United States. On November 1, 2007, during the height of the litigation, Merck filed its …
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