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Climate Change

District Court Dismisses Michigan's Hail Mary Antitrust Suit Against Fossil Fuel Companies

Michigan sued fossil fuel companies under an imaginative antitrust theory that the district court could not accept.

Jonathan H. Adler | 9.23.2026 1:19 PM

Yesterday, in Michigan v. BP, a federal district court in Michigan dismissed the state's ambitious antitrust suit against fossil fuel companies alleging that they had conspired to suppress alternative energy sources resulting, among other things, in higher prices for Michigan consumers. While the same court had previously rejected the Trump Administration's attempt to preempt Michigan's suit, once confronted with the merits of the suit it found Michigan's claims wanting.

Both decisions seem correct to me. There was no legal basis upon which to prevent Michigan from filing suit against fossil fuel companies, but the suit that Michigan ultimately filed deserved to fail on its own terms. Michigan's theory was clever, but perhaps too clever to survive any meaningful legal scrutiny.........

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