ESG Archives - Securities Docket

Is anti-ESG illegal?

March 10, 2026, 8:18 am Class Actions, Top

…My point here is not to endorse one theory or another; I think both theories are partly true and hard to untangle. My point here is just that some people believe that “ESG” is not about maximizing investor returns, and other people think that “ESG” is about maximizing investor returns.

If you think it’s not, you go to Texas and sue American Airlines for doing ESG. If you think it is about maximizing investor returns, though, you go find a company whose 401(k) plans don’t have ESG funds, and you go to Seattle and sue that company for not doing ESG. Here’s a lawsuit filed last week, in a Seattle federal court, against Cushman & Wakefield Ltd….

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SEC Chair Says Agency Aims to Curb Shareholder ESG Proposals

October 10, 2025, 7:49 am SEC, Top

The Securities and Exchange Commission will rethink a federal regulation that requires companies to include ESG-related shareholder proposals in their proxy filings, chairman Paul Atkins said late Thursday. Atkins, speaking at the University of Delaware, said the SEC’s previous position had driven the “politicization of shareholder meetings.” Eight decades after the rule on shareholder proxy access was first promulgated, changing…

Aberdeen chair says ‘save the world’ claim by asset managers was a ‘mistake’

July 1, 2025, 7:52 am Top

Asset managers made a “huge mistake” in claiming the investment industry could “save the world”, the departing chair of the UK’s Aberdeen Group said, over-egging their role in environment, social and government issues for marketing purposes. Sir Douglas Flint, a former HSBC chair, told a City of London conference this week that their “ridiculously extravagant claims” had opened up asset…

Paul Weiss, Assailed by Trump, Quietly Scrubs ESG From Website

April 11, 2025, 11:25 am Industry, Top

Law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison has long held itself up as a trailblazer on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. It launched one of the legal industry’s early standalone ESG advisory practices in 2020 to guide clients on things like climate disclosures and labor practices. A year later, it created the ESG and Law Institute, a “thought…

Deutsche Bank Asset Management Unit Pays €25m Greenwashing Fine | The D&O Diary

April 7, 2025, 8:03 am Global, Top

Though the German fine was just assessed this past week, in many ways the German proceedings feel like a throwback to an earlier time. The allegations against DWS are a reminder that just a short time ago, firms felt compelled to try to demonstrate their green credentials. The prosecution against DWS is a reminder that some firms, as part of…

Maybe ESG Is Illegal Now – Bloomberg

January 15, 2025, 7:38 am Industry, Top

The way US federal law works is that there are only a few federal judges in the Fort Worth Division of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, and they are extremely conservative. The best-known is Judge Reed O’Connor, “who critics say has been a subject of ‘forum shopping’ by conservative plaintiffs seeking a sympathetic court in…

Blue State AGs Prepare to Use Loper Bright Ruling to Defend ESG

December 18, 2024, 7:44 am SEC, Top, Uncategorized

The top law enforcement officers for blue states are planning to turn conservatives’ own legal arguments against them to defend environmental, social, and governance principles during the Trump-Vance administration. The blue state AGs are ready to use the Supreme Court’s June Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision as a line of attack if the Trump administration issues anti-ESG edicts that…

SEC Charges Advisory Firm WisdomTree with Failing to Adhere to Its Own Investment Criteria For ESG-Marketed Funds

October 22, 2024, 8:11 am SEC, Top

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged New York-based investment adviser WisdomTree Asset Management Inc. with making misstatements and for compliance failures relating to the execution of an investment strategy that was marketed as incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. According to the SEC’s order, from March 2020 until November 2022, WisdomTree represented in prospectuses for three ESG-marketed exchange-traded…

Keurig’s SEC Penalty Shows Company ESG Disclosures Still Matter

October 2, 2024, 5:09 pm SEC, Top

A recent settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Keurig Dr. Pepper Inc. shows that despite significant recent setbacks, the SEC is still focusing on environmental, social, and governance issues. The SEC announced a settlement with Keurig in September over allegations that the company’s annual reports claiming K-cup pods could be recycled were inaccurate. In response, Keurig agreed to…

SEC Abandons ESG Enforcement Group Amid Broader Backlash

September 13, 2024, 8:23 am SEC, Top

The SEC has quietly disbanded a group of enforcement lawyers who helped bring litigation fighting misleading environmental, social and governance disclosures for more than three years. The Securities and Exchange Commission shut down its Enforcement Division’s Climate and ESG Task Force within the past few months, an agency spokesperson told Bloomberg Law Thursday. The agency launched the group in March…