NYC pension firms sued for selling off billions in fossil-fuel holdings

Three New York City pension funds were sued this week for allegedly breaching their fiduciary duty and divesting from energy companies, resulting in the sale of billions of dollars in fossil fuel assets.

In a complaint filed Thursday in New York state court, plaintiffs argued that the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the Teachers’ Retirement System, and the Board of Education Retirement System acted unlawfully and violated their obligations to participants when they agreed to divest from fossil fuel holdings in 2021. The plaintiffs, who are municipal employees, are represented by Eugene Scalia, the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyer who is the former Secretary of Labor and the son of former Supreme Court associate justice Antonin Scalia.

Such a decision was a “misguided and ineffectual gesture to address climate change,” made without “regard for whether those assets would produce a superior return for the plans,” the complaint says.

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New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who oversees the city’s pension plans, has been actively urging fund managers, including BlackRock, to implement more aggressive policies to limit oil and gas financing.

His office filed a shareholder resolution with Goldman Sachs earlier this year urging the bank to set “absolute” greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, though that resolution failed to pass.

A number of Republican-led U.S. states have moved to pass anti-ESG legislation prohibiting use of such considerations in financial decisions. Some states, like Texas and Florida have restricted doing business with banks and investment firms that invest using ESG decisions.

In their complaint, plaintiffs requested that the court declare that the pension funds have breached and continue to breach the fiduciary duties they owe to participants and beneficiaries. They lawsuit also requests an unspecified amount in damages to remediate the harm caused.

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“Defendants’ actions in selling off high-performing securities, and prioritizing lower-yield investments, is especially troubling given the plans’ chronic and severe underfunding,” the suit said.