Overview
- Attorney General Dana Nessel filed the 126‑page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, naming BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute.
- The suit alleges decades of coordinated conduct to restrain competition from electric vehicles and renewable energy, including capture‑and‑kill patent strategies, shelving hybrid technologies, limiting charging infrastructure, and shaping academic research and public messaging.
- Michigan seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement of profits, treble damages, civil penalties, and a jury trial, framing the case as a response to an energy affordability crisis for consumers.
- Industry representatives reject the accusations as baseless, with API saying energy policy belongs in Congress and Chevron’s counsel pointing to prior dismissals of similar cases in multiple jurisdictions.
- Legal analysts describe the approach as a significant expansion of antitrust law and expect prompt motions to dismiss citing lack of a well‑pleaded agreement, contestable market definitions, timeliness issues, and First Amendment concerns, with a related federal preemption suit from 2025 still unresolved.