BlackRock Investor Sues Board Over Coal Antitrust Claims (1)

BlackRock Inc. board members had the financial giant collude with other asset managers in an environmentally-focused pressure campaign on coal companies to reduce production, a shareholder lawsuit said.

The shareholder derivative complaint accuses billionaire CEO Larry Fink and others of leveraging BlackRock’s holdings of publicly-traded US coal producers to bully companies into lowering production in line with its net-zero emissions goals while profiting off of increasing returns in its natural gas and renewable energy companies. In doing so, the board exposed BlackRock to consequences of litigation and pressure from both the political right and left over its publicly-touted environmental promises, ...