A federal judge has dismissed Michigan’s antitrust case against four major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute, finding that the state had not connected the alleged conspiracy closely enough to the energy overcharges it sought to recover.
U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering in Grand Rapids ruled Tuesday that federal antitrust law did not supply a remedy for most of the injuries described by Attorney General Dana Nessel. The state had accused BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and the industry group of working to slow competition from electric vehicles and renewable-energy technologies.
The complaint framed the conduct as a market-allocation and suppression case rather than a conventional climate-damages action. Even so, the court found the causal chain too remote. Michigan’s theory required the court to move from alleged industry coordination, through decades of policy and investment choices, to higher prices paid by the state and its residents. Beckering concluded that the distance between those steps defeated proximate causation.
The dismissal is a final judgment at the trial-court level, although Michigan may appeal. It follows a series of losses for state and local governments pursuing climate-related claims against fossil-fuel companies in federal and state courts. Other cases remain pending, and their legal theories vary.
The ruling does not decide whether the companies’ public statements about climate change were accurate. It addresses whether Michigan pleaded an antitrust injury that federal law recognizes and whether the alleged conduct caused the overcharges claimed. The attorney general had not announced an appeal by the time of publication.
