The organization behind Climate Liability News (CLN), a dark money anti-oil and gas activist website set up to promote climate lawsuits, may be violating Maryland state law, according to the Daily Caller. A complaint filed by attorney Cleta Mitchell alleges that CLN’s parent organization failed to register with its home state and asks state officials to investigate the organization and consider fining the group and its directors for violating state law.

Climate Liability News is a project of Climate Communications and Law (CCL), a non-profit incorporated in Washington, D.C., on April 26, 2017. The complaint provides evidence that CCL’s corporate status was revoked by D.C. as of May 19, 2019, but says CCL filed to have its status reinstated earlier this month after the revocation was brought to its attention.

Though CCL is incorporated in D.C., its business address is located in Frederick, Maryland, and a November 2018 filing with the IRS states that it conducts business in Maryland. Mitchell notes in her complaint:

“Maryland law requires all business entities, including non-stock corporations, doing business in the state of Maryland to register with the Department of Assessments and Taxation…Any corporation formed under the laws of a jurisdiction other than Maryland must register as a foreign business in the state of Maryland prior to doing any interstate or foreign business in Maryland…No such registration has been filed by Climate Communications & Law.” (emphasis added)

The complaint calls on the Maryland Secretary of State and the Director of the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation to fine CCL for failing to register and to “initiate proceedings for misdemeanor violations of Maryland law against the individual directors of the organization, Kert Davies, Richard Wiles, and Alyssa Johl,” which could result in individual fines.

Davies, Wiles, and Johl are all central figures of the climate liability campaign against energy companies through CCL and affiliated groups. Davies, for instance, runs the shadowy Climate Investigations Center and has spent over 20 years digging through energy company files in hopes of finding evidence of something that could lead to legal action. Davies also participated in the infamous January 2016 strategy session hosted by the Rockefellers where activists laid out their plans to expand the #ExxonKnew controversy into legal action against the broader oil and gas sector.

Wiles and Johl are the leaders of the Center for Climate Integrity, another shadowy group that has engaged in a massive PR campaign to promote climate liability litigation. The Rockefeller-funded group has hosted panels promoting the lawsuits, released a report designed to pressure coastal cities into suing energy companies, purchased billboards advocating for climate litigation, and produced a podcast to amplify activists (including Kert Davies).

Wiles also hired a lobbyist in Florida to arrange meetings between public officials and the lawyers seeking additional plaintiffs for their climate lawsuits. The lobbyist told Ft. Lauderdale city officials that his client, Wiles, “was trying to collaborate with” the lawyers representing other cities in their climate liability lawsuits, according to emails obtained by the Florida Record. Neither Wiles nor any representatives of his organizations are recorded attending any of the meetings arranged by the lobbyist. The lobbyist did not reply to the Florida Record’s multiple requests for comment on the discrepancy of being hired by one group to lobby for another.

The complaint against CCL is not the first evidence that has surfaced of climate litigation activists appearing to sidestep state laws. The Washington Free Beacon reported last year that a representative of Sher Edling, a law firm representing multiple plaintiffs in climate liability lawsuits against energy producers, asked Miami Beach officials to move their conversations offline, specifically to prevent their communications from being made public.

Emails obtained by the Free Beacon show Sher Edling’s Charles Savitt emailing two Miami Beach officials to schedule an appointment, adding, “Given state law, let’s talk rather than me send you anything.” That email was followed by an even more explicit message: “Given public records laws it is much better for us to talk on the phone.”