After more than two years, and on the day the trial was due to
commence, the ground-breaking climate change lawsuit brought
against one of Australia's largest super/pension funds, the
$57 billion Retail Employees Superannuation Trust
(REST) by a 25 year old fund member, Mark McVeigh,
has settled in what on one view appears to be a capitulation by the
fund.
After failing to provide him with adequate information he asked
for on how it was managing the risks of climate change, McVeigh
claimed REST failed to protect his retirement savings from the
financial ravages of climate change. His aim was to have funds
expressly acknowledge climate change risks as significant and to
make investment decisions having specific regard to those
risks. With REST's settlement agreement he seems to have
achieved his objective with REST expressly stating that it
acknowledges that “climate change could lead to
catastrophic economic and social consequences and is an important
concern of
