Florida’s Attorney General announced an investigation on July 28, 2025 into whether the CDP (formerly known as the Climate Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) have violated consumer protection or antitrust laws by “coercing companies into disclosing proprietary data and paying for access under the guise of environmental transparency.” According to the AG, the CDP charges companies to report, revise and promote their environmental disclosure data, “while selling services that allegedly improve scores and even offer favorable quotes from CDP executives for a price.” The AG alleges that this scoring system is relied upon by investment companies to make financial decisions. The investigation will, among other things, explore whether “CDP’s efforts to pressure or punish companies that don’t participate result in anticompetitive effects,” and whether “coordination between CDP, financial institutions, and investment services constitutes unlawful market manipulation.”
Florida’s investigation comes on the heels of the European Commission fining 15 major car manufacturers in March 2025 for agreeing with each other not to pay car dismantlers for processing “end-of-life vehicles” (ELVs, or vehicles no longer fit for use). They also agreed not to promote in advertising how much of an ELV can be recycled, recovered and reused or how much recycled material is used in new cars, in order to prevent consumers from considering recycling information when choosing a new car (which would pressure car companies to go beyond legal requirements). Fifteen companies were fined between €1.6 million and €127.7 million for their participation in the conspiracy.
This phenomenon isn’t new—right-leaning politicians in the United States have for a while now targeted alleged collusion between climate activists and financial institutions to promote “Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing.” But Florida’s expansion of climate agreement investigations beyond ESG investing and into climate-related benchmarking activities may signal the opening of a new level of scrutiny of climate-related governance efforts.
The Florida AG investigation and European Commission fines offer a stark reminder to industry that agreements on climate-related issues are at heightened risk of falling under antitrust scrutiny, particularly in today’s charged political environment. Companies in all industries should bear in mind that environmental marketing is an important facet of competition, no different than price competition under the antitrust laws. And efforts by industry to address environmental challenges jointly—well-intentioned though they may be—should be carefully vetted by antitrust counsel for whether they may subject their participants to a costly and avoidable antitrust investigation.