The company is making the move for cost purposes and wants more engaged outside counsel at the trial level, according to three people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss a change that hasn’t been announced.
The swap in the company’s national coordinating counsel is not related to revelations early this month that former Paul Weiss leader Brad Karp assisted disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to the people. The disclosures in Justice Department files prompted Karp to step down from his chairman role on Feb. 4.
The move comes as sprawling climate change cases against Exxon and other oil giants play out in different courts, and after Paul Weiss cemented its position as a corporate counsel for Exxon rival
John Hueston, a former federal prosecutor best known for leading the Justice Department’s criminal case against former Enron Corp. executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, and Moez Kaba, the firm’s managing partner, are leading the Hueston Hennigan team, according to the people and court filings.
Paul Weiss, Hueston Hennigan, and Exxon either declined or didn’t respond to comment requests.
Paul Weiss Role
Wells, 75, is a longtime co-leader of the litigation department at Paul Weiss. He brought Exxon with him as a client in 2000 when he joined Paul Weiss in a high-profile lateral move from Lowenstein Sandler.
The New Jersey native had a close working relationship with Exxon’s former lead director Kenneth Frazier, a fellow attorney and former pharmaceutical industry CEO. Frazier retired from the suburban Houston-based energy company’s board in 2022, according to two of the people familiar.
The initial series of Paul Weiss withdrawals in the Exxon case drew attention from some news outlets due to the disclosure of emails and other materials related to Epstein.
The first withdrawal by Paul Weiss on behalf of Exxon was filed Jan. 30, the same day the Justice Department began releasing millions of documents from its Epstein archive. Decisions to substitute counsel in complex litigation, such as climate change cases Exxon has faced for almost a decade, are not likely decided in one day, said three of the people familiar with the matter.
Wells has worked on the Exxon cases with other Paul Weiss partners, including Daniel Toal, Yahonnes Cleary, and Justin Anderson, who left the firm in 2023 to become head of litigation at Exxon. Kannon Shanmugam, a star appellate litigator who replaced Wells last year on the board of Harvard Corp., has also appeared on behalf of Exxon.
Shanmugam and Wells also co-lead Paul Weiss’s litigation group along with Jessica Carey, Elizabeth Stotland Weiswasser, Andrew Gordon, and Jay Cohen.
Paul Weiss is continuing to represent Exxon in at least two climate change cases pending in a Dallas federal court and another ongoing civil action filed in 2019 by the attorney general of Massachusetts.
Paul Weiss has enjoyed some key wins during its years representing Exxon, having successfully defended the company against the first-ever $1.6 billion climate change lawsuit brought by New York State in 2019. A state court in South Carolina dismissed last year another lawsuit over climate change risks brought by the city of Charleston against Exxon and 16 other fossil fuel companies.
The firm drew protests in 2020 over its work for Exxon, with law students at Harvard and Yale pressuring the firm to drop its climate change representation of the company.
Chevron’s Status
Paul Weiss has become a key dealmaker for the energy giant’s rival, Chevron.
Scott Barshay, who replaced Karp as chairman this month, has helped build the firm into an M&A powerhouse since he joined it in 2016. His relationship with Chevron spans decades, including advising the company on its $18 billion acquisition of Unocal Corp. in 2005.
Chevron tapped Paul Weiss to handle several major engagements since Barshay was hired, such as its $5 billion acquisition of Noble Energy Inc. in 2020 and an ill-fated $33 billion bid for
Paul Weiss and Barshay also took the lead for Chevron last summer in closing its $53 billion purchase of
Chevron didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Titans Battle
Exxon and Chevron developed a schism in late 2023 that involved access to offshore oilfields in Guyana. Exxon filed an arbitration case that was called one of the most notable disputes in the energy industry in decades.
Exxon lost the 20-month feud and now shares Guyana’s oil-rich coastal waters, a region that neighbors Venezuela, with Chevron and
Exxon, however, was never directly adverse to Chevron in the arbitration proceeding, although the latter supported Hess in the matter, said two people familiar with the dispute. Paul Weiss has sought to de-conflict its position between oil and gas titans by handling litigation for Exxon and deal work for Chevron, an arrangement that in the insular US energy sector is not unusual.
“It’s not uncommon to be friends and allies on one deal and enemies on yet another,” said Ed Hirs, an energy industry expert at the University of Houston.
Christopher Kulander, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas School of Law and of counsel at Houston’s Oliva Gibbs, said energy companies tend to be most concerned about conflicts in litigation, not deal work, and that despite bitter disagreements on some issues there can still be cooperation elsewhere.
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