ConocoPhillips Company and Royal Dutch Shell plc agreed to withdraw two of their arguments supporting their motions to dismiss Oakland and San Francisco’s climate change public nuisance cases for lack of personal jurisdiction. ConocoPhillips said it would forgo asserting “Corporate Separateness” (concerning whether ConocoPhillips’s subsidiaries were its agents for purposes of attributing their California contacts to ConocoPhillips) and “Reasonableness” (concerning whether exercise of personal jurisdiction was unreasonable under the circumstances) arguments against personal jurisdiction to avoid the need for jurisdictional discovery and to “speed a resolution” of the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Royal Dutch Shell plc also agreed to withdraw its arguments against personal jurisdiction for which jurisdictional discovery had been ordered, and also said it would waive service of summons to moot its motion to dismiss for insufficient service of process. Both companies will continue to assert that personal jurisdiction does not exist because their alleged contacts with the jurisdiction are not the but-for cause of the cities’ alleged harms. The court signed off on the parties’ stipulations on June 6.

Public nuisance actions brought by City of Oakland and City of San Francisco against fossil fuel companies.

City of Oakland v. BP p.l.c.

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Fossil Fuel Companies Waived Personal Jurisdiction Arguments to Avoid Discovery in Oakland and San Francisco Climate Cases

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