• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Web of ExxonMobil’s Legal Troubles Extends from White House to Calgary

July 24, 2017
Reading time: 2 minutes

Minale Tattersfield/flickr

Minale Tattersfield/flickr

 

Ongoing legal challenges facing ExxonMobil, the world’s largest investor-owned oil company, are reverberating from Donald Trump’s cabinet table in Washington to a bureaucratic backwater of Exxon’s Calgary-based Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil.

In Washington, agreements with Russian parties under now-secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s watch as Exxon CEO may have violated U.S. sanctions against Russia. In response, “Treasury officials fined ExxonMobil $2 million for signing eight business agreements in 2014 with Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft, an energy giant partially owned by the Russian government,” the Washington Post reports.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

“The business agreements came less than a month after the United States banned companies from doing business with him.”

Tillerson’s old company promptly “filed a legal complaint against the Treasury Department—naming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the lead defendant.” The company called the fine “unlawful” and “fundamentally unfair.”

According to the government, while Tillerson was CEO of Exxon at the time, he “did not personally sign the documents sealing the agreements with Rosneft,” the Post notes. “But in its announcement, the Treasury said that ‘senior-most executives knew of Sechin’s status’ and that they ‘caused significant harm to the Ukraine-related sanctions’ by engaging in business agreements with him.”

“I can’t think of another case where you’ve had a senior government official on both sides of the ‘v,’ essentially,” former Treasury Department official Adam Smith told the paper. Tillerson’s engagement with Russia as Exxon’s CEO raised a red flag during his confirmation hearings for the position of Secretary of State.

In an unrelated case, meanwhile, the National Observer reports that New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is seeking testimony from a Canadian involved in Imperial Oil’s planning scenarios, as he seeks to determine whether Exxon kept two sets of books for its shadow price on carbon. One, intended for investors, showed the oil giant conscientiously pricing in a plausible nominal cost for its carbon production, against the day when public policy forces it to do so. The other, by which it made actual operating decisions, employed a much lower cost. Schneiderman asserts the difference constituted a fraud on Exxon investors.

According to the Observer, New York has secured a court order for testimony from Jason Iwanika, stating that the Imperial employee initially “pushed back” when Exxon instructed him to use the lower, internal price for Imperial’s tar sands/oil sands planning, rather than the official public one. Later, Schneiderman said, Iwanika agreed to use the lower rate.

Imperial Oil did not respond to the Observer’s requests for comment, and it was unclear whether Iwanika would appear in Schneiderman’s witness box.

Schneiderman’s other enquiries have revealed the strange fact that as Exxon’s CEO, Tillerson maintained an email alter ego under the name Wayne Tracker. The New York Attorney General has been trying to force Exxon to turn over the Tracker email trail, as well.



in Canada, Community Climate Finance, Energy Politics, Legal & Regulatory, Tar Sands / Oil Sands, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mike Mozart/Flickr
Ending Emissions

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
331
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures
Canada

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE
Ending Emissions

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
331
openthegovernment.org

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package

August 8, 2022
541
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

February 5, 2023
262
Lucio Santos/flickr

Canadian Banks Increased Fossil Investment in 2021, Report Card Shows

November 27, 2022
116
Kenuoene/pixabay

$50B Opportunity Means ‘Go Time’ for Canadian Renewables: CanREA CEO

December 19, 2022
574
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
326

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post
naturalflow/Flickr

Robot Camera Finds Some of Fukushima’s Missing Melted Nuclear Fuel

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}