ExxonMobil's defamation suit against the Environment Justice Fund dismissed

In January 2025, ExxonMobil filed a defamation, business-disparagement, and commercial-interference suit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, naming the Intergenerational Environment Justice Fund alongside Sierra Club, San Francisco Baykeeper, Heal the Bay, Surfrider Foundation, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta as defendants, as reported by ABC News. The suit followed a September 2024 case in which the Attorney General and those environmental groups had sued ExxonMobil over its plastics-recyclability claims.

ExxonMobil alleged — an allegation, not an established fact — that the fund had helped fund legal work connected with the California case. On 13 February 2026, the court dismissed ExxonMobil’s claims against the fund and the other US environmental organisations for lack of personal jurisdiction. The fund was represented throughout by the law firm Hecker Fink LLP. The underlying California litigation over ExxonMobil’s plastics claims remains ongoing.