Exxon Rejects New York's Accusations in Climate Case

By Erin Ailworth 

Exxon Mobil Corp. called accusations that it withheld documents relating to climate change from the New York attorney general an attempt to discredit the energy company, but disclosed a newly discovered technical issue that could mean it will soon release more of its former chairman's emails.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office has been investigating whether Exxon misrepresented its understanding of climate change to investors and the public. Earlier this week, lawyers for Mr. Schneiderman's office said in court documents that Exxon had not disclosed that Rex Tillerson, Exxon's former chief executive, had used an alias email -- [e-mail] -- to discuss the issue.

Exxon rebutted that claim in a letter to the court on Thursday, saying that the accusations were about "obtaining publicity, not information."

The company has produced more than 2.5 million pages of documents in connection with Mr. Schneiderman's investigation, including emails from the Wayne Tracker account, as well as the primary Exxon email address used by Mr. Tillerson, who is now U.S. secretary of state.

"Mr. Tillerson's use of the Wayne Tracker account was entirely proper," Exxon said in its letter. "It allowed a limited group of senior executives to send time-sensitive messages to Mr. Tillerson that received priority over the normal daily traffic that crossed the desk of a busy CEO. The purpose was efficiency, not secrecy."

But a re-examination of Mr. Tillerson's Wayne Tracker account -- prompted by Mr. Schneiderman's accusations -- revealed a technical issue with the system Exxon uses to protect and save emails that are under a litigation hold, the company said.

"Despite the company's intent to preserve the relevant emails in both of Mr. Tillerson's accounts, due to the manner in which email accounts had been configured years earlier and how they interact with the system, these technological processes did not automatically extend to the secondary email account," Exxon said in the letter to the court.

That means more emails associated with the Wayne Tracker email address could surface and be released to the AG's office. But because many of the emails sent to the Wayne Tracker account were also sent to Mr. Tillerson's primary email, or were sent from senior executives whose communications fall under Mr. Schneiderman's subpoena, Exxon said it expects the impact of the technical issue "will not be significant."

Mr. Schneiderman's office has known about the alias email account since February 2016, the company said.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general said he looked forward to addressing the issues raised in Exxon's letter in court.

"More than 16 months after receiving our subpoena, Exxon is just now admitting it may not have preserved or produced the emails of its former CEO, who used an alias email account," said Amy Spitalnick, press secretary for Mr. Schneiderman.

Mr. Tillerson has been traveling in Asia this week. The State Department declined comment.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 16, 2017 22:53 ET (02:53 GMT)

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