Michigan Attorney General (AG) Dana Nessel on Friday filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against several large oil companies, alleging a decades-long conspiracy to suppress renewable energy competition.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan, names BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute as the defendants. The suit alleges a conspiracy to restrain trade under the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act. The case seeks permanent injunctive relief under Clayton Act Section 14, disgorgement of profits, treble damages, and a jury trial on all claims.
In a statement, AG Nessel elaborated on the suit:
Michigan is facing an energy affordability crisis as our home energy costs skyrocket and consumers are left without affordable options for transportation. Whether you own a home, a small business, or run a large corporation, rising energy and transportation costs harm everyone…These out-of-control costs are not the result of natural economic inflation, but due to the greed of these corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace dominance over competition and consumer savings.
Friday’s 122-page complaint alleges that the oil companies executed coordinated efforts to suppress electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy technologies that would have otherwise competed with gasoline and fossil fuels. Specific allegations include Exxon shelving market-ready hybrid vehicle prototypes developed in the late 1970s, Chevron acquiring and blocking nickel-metal hydride battery patents through restrictive licensing and litigation, and the defendants collectively refusing to install EV charging stations at retail locations and abandoning commercially viable solar ventures. The complaint further argues that the defendants coordinated investment strategies through organizations like the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative to move capital resources away from renewables and toward technologies that promote fossil fuel use.
The lawsuit frames this purported conduct as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, meaning that the actions are so inherently anticompetitive that they are illegal without needing to examine the actual market effects. The suit further argues that the alleged conspiracy violates antitrust law under the rule of reason analysis because it artificially reduced renewable energy output in the Michigan transportation and primary energy markets, eliminated competitive pressure that would have lowered prices, and forced consumers to pay increased prices for fossil fuels while denying them meaningful choice. The complaint cites traditional antitrust plus factors including conduct inconsistent with the defendants’ independent economic interests, institutionalized coordination through trade associations, and exchange of competitively sensitive information. The lawsuit also leverages the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act (MARA) to provide a parallel state-law basis for the claims.
This comes amidst ongoing litigation and competing interests in the landscape of fossil fuels, renewable energies, and climate impacts. Last March, the US Department of Justice filed lawsuits against Hawaii, Michigan, New York, and Vermont over “unconstitutional” and “burdensome” climate change initiatives. Last February, 22 states sued New York over a new law requiring fossil fuel companies to contribute some $75 billion to a fund to pay for damages caused by climate change.
