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Exxon Mobil Has Been Sued In Federal Court In The United States Regarding ...


Exxon Mobil has been sued in Federal Court in the United States regarding its complicity in abuses of human rights in Nigeria under the Alien Tort Claims Act law (laborrights.org, 2001). Suits of this type have also been brought against Chevron as well (laborrights.org, 2001). Misconduct in the area of environmental areas was also reported by the International Secretariat, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth in Nigeria for numerous issues (waado.org, 2001). In 2004, the ExxonMobil was addressed in its headquarters in Houston, Texas by Dr. Brown Ogbeifun, the president of Pengassan Petroleum and the Natural gas Association of Nigeria for anti labour practices (Ahiuma-Young, 2004). On June 8, 2005 the Guardian (2005) published an article revealing that Exxon Mobil supplied documents to the United States President that stated the need for more information on the global warming issue and that the costs of the Kyoto Protocol were unacceptable.
The company's web site does not refer directly to corporate social responsibility, listing Citizenship Overview which discuses awards issued by the Louisiana Minority Council Corporation of the Year and the Houston Minority Business Council Professional Services Development Award (Exxon Mobil, 2006b). Exxon Mobil's 2005 Annual Report (2005, pp. 8-10) does not make reference to any disputes in the corporate social responsibility area and states that ExxonMobil's commitment to good corporate citizenship is founded upon an Ethics Policy that goes beyond compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Exxon Mobil's 2005 form 10-K under Item 3. Legal Proceedings makes no references to any issues in Nigeria (Edgar Online, 2006, p. 19). The issues the corporation has in Nigeria have not yielded definitive cases which require the company to report same in its Annual Report, as well as Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K filings, thus statements and issues concerning Corporate Social responsibility must be researched in order for such items to be located.
Table 2 Calvert Report Summary for Exxon Mobil
(The Rating Scale Represents 1, being the lowest, to 5, being the highest)
Calvert Leader
Environment
Work-
place
Business
Practices
Human
Rights
Comm.
Relations
Calvert
Social
Index
Holding


1
2
4
2
4
No


The Calvert Rating provides insight as Exxon scored well only on Business Practices, 4, and Community Relations, posting substandard scores for Environment, 1. Workplace, 2, and Human Rights, 2, which indicates that the researched reports are in consort with Calvert's examination. This analysis is held by Oekom Research (2003) which rated Exxon Mobil D+ as a result of gas flaring problems which result in pollution, with no mention of Nigeria issues.


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