You won’t hear this news from any activist media types. But a passel of almost two dozen Republican State Attorneys General made one ESG-oriented UN-backed climate coalition — the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance — disappear. Harry Houdini could not have pulled this trick off if he tried. The AGs sent a simple letter to the group in May this year, hinting that the conglomerate organization could violate US antitrust laws. And, abracadabra, the international woke folk went “poof” into the ether.
“Under our nation’s antitrust laws and their state equivalents, it is well-established that certain arrangements among business competitors are strictly forbidden because they are unfair or unreasonably harmful to competition,” the letter warned.
Fourteen members fled, including $1 trillion insurance juggernaut Allianz, Tokio Marine Holdings, and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance. Even Lloyd’s of London, the company that has insured Rolling Stone Keith Richard’s fingers and the legs of Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, and Angie Dickinson, skedaddled from the potential risk of more investigations.
The disappearing act seemed immediate but did not happen overnight: The magic took the AG collective about two years of research, veiled threats, and plenty of investigations and lawsuits. The top GOP lawyers went after several UN-sponsored players in environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). Or, more simply put, members of the international “hall monitor” club that assesses business practices and performance in sustainability and ethical issues.
The AGs smelled a quirky arithmetic equation: “The major fault with everyone in these Net Zero groups is it became very calculative,” said Peter Bisbee, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association. “You could see exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it, and a lot of companies were putting out very mathematical language of how they were going to achieve these targets.”
Federal and state antitrust laws aren’t copacetic with agreements that demand not doing business with sectors that don’t fall in lockstep with the ESG program. To boycott a company not meeting the radical green agenda could be downright illegal.
As Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told the Free Beacon, “Collusion between companies to limit the choices available to consumers has been a concern of AG offices for over a century.”
A Trick of the Trade
The AGs began their movement against the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative and the Net Zero Bankers Alliance, which formed in 2020 and 2021, respectively, to “accelerate [the] transition to a net-zero emissions economy.” Liberty Nation’s Andrew Moran has extensively covered each movement and sees this effort by coalitions much differently. He explained, “While banks have incorporated ESG principles into their corporate governance (green branches or diverse boards), the main objective is to make sure banks prioritize their funding to anything that adheres to the leftist mantra.”
Oh, that was not the end of Moran’s assessment, which needs further explanation:
“This is done in two main ways. First, prioritize loans or funding for companies that adopt the ESG philosophy. Second, maintain funds (mutual funds or exchange-traded funds) that invest heavily in ESG. Rather than placing profit as the chief objective, it is about making sure they have drag queens on the board of directors and everyone sips the office coffee with paper straws (I’m exaggerating, of course). The BlackRock CEO even says that the private sector can ‘force behaviors’ by nudging clients, investors, or companies into the ESG direction.”
“Wash, rinse, and repeat and apply to every business sector and there is a huge problem growing under our collective noses. However, the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance got the message loud, clear, and early.
Waking Up to Woke
(photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Yes, the “force behaviors” part might be why the American AGs went all in on getting this group to vanish. And the final straw was that, once more, the United Nations inserted itself into forcing people to be woke in the insurance industry. That May letter worked: Accusations of a potential violation of antitrust laws scattered even the largest of insurance providers worldwide into oblivion: “These actions have led to serious detrimental effects on the residents of our states,” the letter scolded. “The push to force insurance companies and their clients to rapidly reduce their emissions has led not only to increased insurance costs, but also to high gas prices and higher costs for products and services across the board, resulting in record-breaking inflation and financial hardships for the residents of our states.”
The now historic-in-importance letter was signed by AGs from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming — a red swathe of a critical strike.
“The whole alliance started to collapse. It did not take a formal investigation,” reminded Bisbee. “The insurers just simply started fleeing.” Well, yes, nothing to see here because even insurance companies aren’t going to pay for those tap-dancing in a minefield of woke.
All opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Liberty Nation.
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