West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey
CHARLESTON – West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey’s office has filed a lawsuit claiming the world’s largest proxy advisor firm misled West Virginia investors.
And McCuskey has some big names representing the state in the case.
Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. promised objective advice while promoting an undisclosed ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) agenda and coordinating with activist groups, according to the AG’s complaint, which was filed May 20 in Harrison Circuit Court.
“West Virginia citizens, investors and businesses demand a marketplace that is free from undue influence,” McCuskey said. “ISS has, itself and through its proxies, exerted massive, secretive influence over major portions of our economy, leading to a restructuring of boardrooms into political machines designed to destroy coal, gas and many of the values that West Virginians hold dear.
“That stops today. The market works best when it’s free, and this is a huge step to returning to that ideal.”
Barr
The case is being handled by outside counsel that includes two-time former U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr and former Virginia AG Jason Miyares.
Miyares
The lawsuit claims ISS falsely advertised its services as objective, while actually working with ESG activist groups such as Climate Action 100+, Ceres and The Children’s Investment Fund, to shape recommendations, without disclosing their influence to clients who were expecting neutral recommendations. The state alleges those deceptive actions are a violation of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act.
McCuskey says ISS’s owners – Deutsche Börse AG and General Atlantic – are also committed ESG activists, creating undisclosed conflicts of interest. The AG says the company used ESG metrics without studying financial impact, adopting broad ESG policies without analyzing their effect on shareholder value or company performance.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims ISS opposed leaders who focused on financial analysis over ideology, citing Warren Buffett as an example.
From 2022 to early 2025, ISS allegedly recommended votes against board members based on race and ethnicity – a policy the lawsuit says was illegal and not disclosed to clients. ISS ended this after a 2025 Executive Order. On the side, ISS ran a consulting business selling ESG services to the same companies it rated, without fully disclosing this conflict of interest, according to the complaint.
Florida first filed a lawsuit against ISS in November. West Virginia, Nebraska, Iowa and Texas all sued ISS earlier this month.
The Multistate Proxy Advisor Coalition aims for coordinated efforts and a unified front against what they call widespread harm from ISS’s practices. The Multistate Proxy Advisor Coalition includes West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
The state is being represented by Christopher D. Pence, Marc C. Bryson and William Scott Wickline of Pence Law Firm in Charleston as well as by Barr, Miyares, David M. Levine, Timothy Shea and Ryan Ferguson or Torridon Law in Washington, D.C.
The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Andrew McMunn.
Harrison Circuit Court case number 26-C-113r
