Exxon’s Pyrrhic Defeat Against Chevron and Hess: Javier Blas

Exxon Mobil Corp. is one of the oil industry’s most litigious companies, always ready to take a rival, a government, a green campaigner or even prospective investors to court. In any dispute, its message is the same: We know the law better. Even though that’s often untrue, it doesn’t matter — for Exxon, lawsuits are often just tools to delay the inevitable, and losing them is just another way of winning.

On Friday, Exxon lost the oil industry’s highest-profile legal dispute in 40 years to arch-rival Chevron Corp. The case centered around the acquisition of prized oilfields in Guyana, part of Chevron’s ...