Proxy advisor firm HIT with MULTISTATE lawsuit over ESG agenda

Ajouté : 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Now, this Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgars filed a lawsuit against one of the largest proxy advisory firms in the country. It's called Institutional Shareholders Services. The lawsuit says ISS misled investors by not providing them with objective advice, actually promoting an undisclosed ESG agenda in coordination with climate activist groups. Attorney General Hilgars joins me now. Did I get your your case against them correctly?

[00:00:28]>> Good morning, David. No, you you really did. ISS sells a very important service to institutional investors, which is advice on how to exercise their votes for all the shares that they own. They say that those services are based on what's going to maximize shareholder value. But we found in our investigation that they are in fact not, and instead they're smuggling in a radical climate ideology, which in fact would destroy stake shareholder value.

[00:00:51]>> Now, they've had some problems before.

[00:00:54]Uh were they similar to the the ones you're charging them with? Yeah, they are similar. Although in our case, this is really the first time, David, we're aware that a lawsuit has really put forward these consumer protection and deceptive trade practices claims because in this case, we have evidence, internal evidence and emails where they knew what they were saying was wrong, but it but at the same time they were marketing their services to their institutional clients as as something different from what in fact they intended. The best example, maybe the worst example is that they had a disfavored recommendation to reelect Warren Buffett as a on the board of directors of Brookshire Hathaway because they one of the greatest capitalists of certainly in my lifetime because they hadn't done enough to get rid of fossil fuels by 2050. That's really at the core of what we've alleged which is unique from other cases.

[00:01:41]>> Wow. So, so they were actually advising their clients to do something that would have likely lost money for their clients just because of their their political bias.

[00:01:52]>> That That's exactly right. By the way, you are entitled to do that as long as you tell people upfront that's what you want. If people want based advisory services, they can get it. But don't tell them you're going to give them one thing and then give them another.

[00:02:03]>> So, what do you want out of the lawsuit?

[00:02:06]Well, we we want to make sure that the Nebraskans who were harmed have our get restitution and there's penalties sufficient to deter to deter the conduct. But at the end of the day, what we want is just for ISS to be honest going forward. That's it. Just tell the truth to their customers. No more, no less.

[00:02:22]>> Is this something that you've seen happening in other parts of the country?

[00:02:28]>> And unfortunately, David, the answer is yes. In a lot of markets, especially in the financial world, we have seen people say one thing and then do another. And often the other thing that they're trying to do is do something in the ESG space or the climate space where they're really trying to to sort of change the the gears of our economy in a way that isn't through a vote of Congress or isn't through the free market to really for these really climate radical climate ends.

[00:02:52]>> Well, please uh keep us in touch. We'd like to know how this thing uh ends up because of course they are they are complaining about your lawsuit and they're going to fight it. Uh Attorney General Mike Hilgurt, thank you so much.

[00:03:03]Appreciate it.

[00:03:04]>> Well, ISS has issued a statement to Fox Business. We asked them. They say, quote, "We are reviewing the complaint and will respond to court in due course.

[00:03:14]We believe the allegations lack merit and will vigorously defend against them.

[00:03:19]ISS's job is to provide sophisticated institutional investor clients with independent, timely, and expert research and vote recommendations based on the proxy voting policies the clients have selected or cons customized based on their determination of the best interest of the beneficiaries they serve.