Issue - September 29, 2026

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, September 29, and this week’s ESG Litigation Weekly covers a Michigan federal court’s dismissal of the state’s antitrust lawsuit against major oil companies, separate lawsuits involving data center projects in Georgia and Texas, the European Commission’s adoption of a data center sustainability rating regulation, and more.

Federal Court Dismisses Michigan Antitrust Case Against Major Oil Companies
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan dismissed the state’s antitrust lawsuit against BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute. Michigan alleged that the defendants conspired to suppress renewable energy competition and maintain higher fossil fuel prices. The court found that Michigan had plausibly alleged energy overcharges as an antitrust injury but had not plausibly connected those overcharges to the alleged conspiracy sufficiently to establish antitrust standing. It also held that federal law barred damages for indirect purchases. The Sherman Act claim was dismissed with prejudice. The state-law claim was dismissed without prejudice after the court declined supplemental jurisdiction. The court limited its analysis to antitrust standing and did not reach the defendants’ other dismissal arguments.
🔗 Read more → CourtListener (Court Order), U.S. Department of Justice (Press Release)

Data Center Projects Face Transparency and Air Permitting Lawsuits
Separate lawsuits challenge data center projects in Georgia and Texas. In Georgia, One Hundred Miles and five Effingham County residents sued the county’s Industrial Development Authority over the proposed $20 billion Project Camellia campus, with OpenAI affiliate Octans GA, LLC also named as a defendant. The plaintiffs allege that the authority violated Georgia’s Open Meetings and Open Records Acts through its meeting notices, agenda descriptions, closed-session discussions, land transactions, and handling of records requests. They seek to invalidate the challenged approvals and related agreements and obtain requested records.
In Texas, Public Citizen and Sierra Club sued Vantage Data Centers entities and VoltaGrid over two San Antonio campuses. The plaintiffs allege that the campuses’ gas-fired power plants and diesel backup generators require major-source permits under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program and were constructed or operated without those permits. They seek orders halting construction and operation pending compliance, along with mitigation and civil penalties.
🔗 Read more → Southern Environmental Law Center (Press Release, Court Filing), Environmental Integrity Project (Press Release, Court Filing)

States Challenge Federal Offshore Wind Lease Cancellation Deals
Eight states filed two lawsuits challenging federal agreements canceling one Bluepoint Wind lease and three Invenergy offshore wind leases. California filed a separate lawsuit concerning an Invenergy lease off its coast. According to the complaints, the agreements provide for reimbursements of $765 million to Bluepoint, more than $653 million for the three eastern Invenergy leases, and approximately $111.8 million for the California lease, tied to equivalent spending on other energy projects. The states allege improper use of the federal Judgment Fund and violations of laws including the Administrative Procedure Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. California also alleges violations of the Coastal Zone Management Act and federal spending requirements. The states seek to set aside the agreements and lease cancellations and block further implementation.
🔗 Read more → New York Attorney General (Press Release, Court Filing 1, Court Filing 2), California Attorney General (Press Release, Court Filing)

Canadian Federal Court Allows Climate Accountability Challenge to Proceed
Canada’s Federal Court dismissed the federal government’s motion to strike a climate accountability case brought by three young applicants, Environmental Defence, and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. The applicants allege that legal, regulatory, and policy changes have left Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan unable to achieve its target. They seek orders requiring the environment minister to bring the plan into compliance with the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. The government argued that the minister’s amendment power is discretionary and that the requested relief is unavailable. The court held that the competing interpretations of the minister’s statutory obligations required fuller analysis and that the application was not clearly incapable of succeeding. The court gave the respondents 45 days to serve any evidence they wish to submit.
🔗 Read more → Ecojustice (Press Release, Court Order)

European Commission Adopts Data Center Sustainability Rating Regulation
The European Commission adopted a delegated regulation establishing a common EU sustainability rating scheme for data centers. The text remains subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament and Council before entering into force. Under the regulation, electronic labels will use information reported to the European data center database to classify facilities by power and water usage effectiveness and display additional resource-use and energy-system information. The first labels are scheduled to be generated by August 15, 2027 and made publicly available. Facilities with installed information technology power demand below 500 kW may participate voluntarily. Separately, the Commission opened a consultation on minimum performance standards for data centers, closing December 14, 2026. It plans a legislative proposal for the second quarter of 2027.
🔗 Read more → European Commission (Press Release, Delegated Regulation, Minimum Performance Standards Consultation)

Türkiye Introduces National Green Taxonomy Framework
Türkiye adopted its Green Taxonomy Regulation, establishing a national classification system for identifying environmentally sustainable economic activities and supporting access to green finance. The framework covers 16 sectors and 137 activities and sets six environmental objectives, including climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable water use, circular economy, pollution prevention, and biodiversity protection. To qualify as taxonomy-aligned, an activity must substantially contribute to at least one objective, do no significant harm to the others, and comply with minimum social safeguards. Taxonomy reporting by nonfinancial businesses will be voluntary, while mandatory reporting for specified financial institutions will begin on January 1, 2029. Technical screening criteria will be published separately by Türkiye’s Climate Change Directorate.
🔗 Read more → Resmî Gazete (Green Taxonomy Regulation), TRT Haber

New Zealand Advertising Code Strengthens Environmental Claims Requirements
New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) released an updated self-regulatory Advertising Standards Code with a standalone principle on environmental responsibility. The revised code will require environmental claims to be truthful and substantiated by evidence reflecting scientific and technological developments. Advertisers must not omit material information affecting consumers’ understanding of environmental impacts. Unqualified claims such as “environmentally friendly” or “100% biodegradable” will be assessed across the full life cycle of the product and its packaging. Qualified or comparative claims must be supported by robust evidence of a real and meaningful environmental benefit or improvement. The revised code applies to new advertising from February 1, 2027 and to all advertising within the ASA’s jurisdiction from April 1, 2027.
🔗 Read more → Advertising Standards Authority (Press Release, Updated Advertising Standards Code)

ASIC Reviews First Wave of Mandatory Sustainability Reports
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) reported improvements in climate-related financial disclosures following the introduction of mandatory sustainability reporting. Its review covered 40 of the 312 reports lodged by entities with financial years ending December 31, 2025, comprising 20 listed and 20 unlisted entities. ASIC observed clearer disclosures on current matters, including governance and risk management, but identified opportunities to improve forward-looking information and disclosures involving assumptions or judgments. Its eight action items include clearer links between sustainability and financial reports, explanations of judgments and measurement uncertainty, and recognition of climate targets imposed by law or regulation. ASIC said its desktop review did not seek evidence to substantiate the disclosures.
🔗 Read more → ASIC (Press Release, Report)

A fast answer and a coordinated one are not the same thing. When AI resolves a B2B customer issue without looping in the teams who have to deliver on it, you get confident responses nobody actually signed off on.

A new briefing paper from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, sponsored by Front, examines the coordination gaps that open up when transactional AI tools meet multi-team B2B service, and how leading companies are using AI to close those gaps instead of widening them.

Read the briefing paper for the questions to ask before your next AI investment.

Read the Briefing Paper

Malaysian High Court Denies RimbaWatch Leave to Challenge Ministries’ Decisions
The Kuala Lumpur High Court denied RimbaWatch leave to pursue judicial review of two ministries’ decisions declining to investigate its complaint about Shell Malaysia’s “carbon neutral” engine oil claims. The Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability had each said the complaint fell outside its jurisdiction. RimbaWatch argued that the ministries had statutory powers and duties to address the alleged misleading claims. According to RimbaWatch’s account of the oral reasons, the court cited lack of standing, the absence of a public-law element, the speculative and premature nature of the application, and the lack of a duty on the trade ministry to investigate every complaint. In its September 23 statement, RimbaWatch said written reasons would follow and announced its intention to appeal.
🔗 Read more → RimbaWatch (Press Release), The Edge Malaysia

UCLA Article Reviews Research on Drivers of Greenwashing
A UCLA Anderson Review article revisits Magali Delmas and Vanessa Burbano’s 2011 framework identifying external pressures, organizational factors, and individual cognitive biases as potential drivers of greenwashing. The framework examines weak or uncertain regulation, misalignment between corporate functions, and factors such as optimism and short-term thinking. The article also discusses a 2013 study that distinguished environmental process measures from outcome measures, finding that processes accounted for more variation in ESG ratings and that investors rewarded process rather than outcomes. More recent conceptual work by Delmas and co-authors distinguishes uncertainty about an initiative’s environmental effects from uncertainty about measuring those effects. The authors propose matching disclosures to those uncertainties, including using process measures, qualified outcome claims, or withholding precise quantitative claims where warranted.
🔗 Read more → UCLA Anderson Review (Article)

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