In his 55-page ruling, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said the attorney general’s office had failed to prove the company violated either the Martin Act, a broad antifraud statute commonly used to pursue financial crime, or other similar laws. “The Office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” Justice Ostrager wrote. Still, he noted the case was a securities-fraud one, and his ruling only revolved around that issue. “Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve ExxonMobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases in the production of its fossil fuel products,” the judge wrote. During the trial, the office of Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, accused the company of using two different accounting methods—one […]