Barnes & Thornburg Helps Win Dismissal of Michigan Climate Lawsuit Against ExxonMobil
Barnes & Thornburg was part of the ExxonMobil defense team that achieved a major win when a federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit brought by the state of Michigan against oil and gas companies over their alleged role in climate change.
On Sept. 22, 2026, Judge Jane Beckering of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Michigan granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed in January by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel against ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute.
In its lawsuit, Michigan used a novel approach to claim that the companies conspired as a “cartel” for decades to maintain market dominance and undermine the renewable energy movement, which led to increasing energy costs for consumers. The state alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act.
But Judge Beckering found that the state lacks antitrust standing to assert its claims. Even if Michigan had sufficiently alleged a conspiracy, the only alleged injury to the state covered by antitrust laws is energy overcharges, she said.
“Michigan alleges that defendants’ conspiracy decreased the [electric vehicle] supply, delayed infrastructure for other EVs and renewable energies, increased insurance premiums for households, depressed home values, and caused Michigan to expend resources to address negative externalities associated with fossil fuel use,” Judge Beckering wrote in her opinion. “These harms are, at most ‘collateral damage’ with respect to the markets in which Michigan alleges defendants conspired: the transportation and primary energy markets. Therefore, Michigan cannot invoke the antitrust laws to remedy these harms.”
Judge Beckering sided with defense co-counsel, including Barnes & Thornburg, for the companies that asked her to throw out the lawsuit in May, saying the state had no basis to allege a conspiracy, and that the lawsuit relied on “long and speculative chains of causation traversing many separate markets” to allege that different investment choices would have changed consumer behavior, reduced worldwide fossil fuel use and lowered retail energy prices in Michigan.
Similar climate lawsuits have also failed in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico and South Carolina.
The U.S. Department of Justice praised Judge Beckering’s ruling, calling Michigan’s effort “another aggressively anti-energy lawsuit.”
The ruling drew widespread coverage, including in The New York Times, Reuters, Law360 and other news sources.
Barnes & Thornburg served as Michigan counsel for ExxonMobil. The team was led by partner Charlie Denton and included partners Aaron Lindstrom, Patrick Miles, Scott Watson and associate Sophia Vander Kooy.