"Press Release/ Climate change trial against TotalEnergies: a worrying ruling that the action brought by associations and local authorities is inadmissible", 6 July 2023

In January 2020, a coalition of associations and local authorities sued TotalEnergies before the Nanterre court… [The] coalition demands the oil company to take the necessary measures to comply with the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, in accordance with the law on duty of vigilance.

The procedure was initially delayed by TotalEnergies, which contested, unsuccessfully the jurisdiction of the judicial court in favour of the commercial court.

In an order handed down today, the Pre-Trial Judge declared the legal action inadmissible.

This is a worrying decision, given that several other legal actions based on the duty of vigilance legislation have also been declared inadmissible in recent months: Tilenga and EACOP projects in February, the Suez/Chile case in June, and EDF Mexico in December.

The judge ruled that TotalEnergies had not been duly served with formal notice on the grounds that the demands set out in the summons were not strictly identical to those in the formal notice sent to the multinational in June 2019. This condition of strict identity between the demands in the formal notice and those in the summons simply does not exist in the law on the duty of vigilance.

Although the law on the duty of vigilance does not impose any mandatory "discussion" or "conciliation" phase between companies and the associations or individuals affected, this order, as well as previous decisions, uses a lack of dialogue as a pretext for ruling the legal actions inadmissible.

The judge also ruled that certain associations and local authorities were inadmissible for lack of legal standing to take legal action to prevent ecological damage…

The judge also considered that local authorities would have no interest in taking action, on the grounds that the effects of climate change would be global and not limited to their territory. Opening access to justice to local authorities in climate matters would make litigation "impossible to control"…

The associations and local authorities are considering what legal action should be taken in response to this order. The coalition remains convinced that legal action is essential to combat the impunity of multinationals in the area of climate change.