Reducing carbon emissions is one of the great challenges of our time. This is the end claimed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for his high-profile investigation of Exxon Mobil Corp., but his end does not justify his means.

Prompted by evidence that the company’s public climate-change ­statements were at odds with what some of its own scientists were saying internally, Schneiderman has utilized New York’s Martin Act to subpoena a broad range of Exxon’s internal documents. The Martin Act grants the attorney general extraordinary powers to subpoena private documents without either obtaining a court order, which is required in most ordinary New York criminal proceedings, or the filing of a complaint, which is required in an ordinary civil action and is subject to court review. The Exxon subpoena is an abuse of these extraordinary powers.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]