"Supreme Court: Companies can’t be sued for not disclosing climate risk", 18 Apr 2024

...The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled shareholders cannot sue companies for securities fraud when they fail to disclose information about future risks, unless the omission made their statements deliberately misleading. 

The decision benefits companies by allowing them more leeway to pick and choose what they disclose to investors. If a company is silent about a risk it faces, it cannot be sued, the court said. But if a company makes a statement that is misleading because it omits information necessary to understand the risks in full, it may still be liable for fraud, the ruling says.

The case, Macquarie Infrastructure vs Moab Partners, was filed by Moab after Macquarie didn’t disclose that its revenue was vulnerable to an international regulation that phased out high-sulfur freighter fuel.

This verdict comes after the Securities & Exchange Commission’s new climate disclosure rule was paused due to ongoing litigation. The SEC rule requires companies to report risks related to Scope 1 and 2 emissions if they might be material to investors...

The timing of the ruling and the pausing of the SEC’s rule could give companies an excuse to pause their environmental reporting...