Arizona AG to Use Antitrust Law to Challenge Green Investors

Megan Gerking spoke to POLITICO Pro about Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announcing plans to launch an antitrust investigation into money managers, lenders, and other firms that have taken steps to identify and reduce the financial risks of climate change.

“ESG-related efforts have been coming up more frequently in the context of raising antitrust risk,” Megan said, adding that this is because antitrust law prohibits competitors from jointly moving to share information, limit output, allocate markets or engage in other behaviors that impact competition, drive up prices, and, as a result, harm consumers.

Megan said that she expects scrutiny related to ESG to intensify as financial firms respond to heightened pressure to manage the risks posed by climate impacts and the clean energy transition.

“Ideally, you’d be able to have companies share information about what they’re doing to further environmental sustainability, Megan said. “But the antitrust laws put a lot of restrictions on what they can do. Even just sharing competitive information, like strategy plans…hypothetically, you could have an antitrust issue.”

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