Exxon must go to trial over alleged climate crimes, court rules

The ruling, and another crucial court decision this week, will force the company to face charges it lied about global heating

The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday ruled that the US's largest oil company, ExxonMobil, must face a trial over accusations that it lied about the climate crisis and covered up the fossil fuel industry's role in worsening environmental devastation.

Exxon claimed the case brought by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, was politically motivated and amounted to an attempt to prevent the company from exercising its free speech rights. But the state's supreme judicial court unanimously dismissed the claim in the latest blow to the oil industry's attempts to head off a wave of lawsuits across the country over its part in causing global heating.