Exxon Benefits From a Pyrrhic Defeat Against Chevron and Hess
The oil giant’s benefit from delaying tactics means its arbitration loss matters less.
Exxon’s delaying tactics in opposing Chevron’s takeover of Hess have benefited the oil giant even though it lost the arbitration case.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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 purchase of Hess Corp in a deal worth almost $60 billion.