Lawyers Begin Suing Oil Company Executives Personally For Climate Change
Activists are finding all kinds of ways to pressure companies to act on climate change. The latest: In the UK, a group of climate lawyers is suing Shell’s directors personally for putting the oil major at risk by refusing to make a better climate change adaptation plan.
The lawsuit, filed in the high court of England and Wales, claims that Shell’s 11 board directors, including Wael Sawan, who became CEO in January 2023, are mismanaging climate risk. In doing so, the lawyers argue, the directors are breaching company law. ClientEarth, the lawyer-run non-profit using its status as a shareholder—with a nominal stake in Shell—to bring the claim, says it’s the first lawsuit of its kind in the world.