Exxon Rejects New York's Accusations in Climate Case
March 16 2017 - 10:49PM
Dow Jones News
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 -- wayne.tracker@exxonmobil.com
-- 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 22:34 ET (02:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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