Chamber Cools to Lawsuit on Global Warming Hoax

By Brent Kendall

When a group of anti-corporate impersonators known as the Yes Men held a fake 2009 press conference to announce the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was changing its position on climate change, were they participating in a constitutionally-protected tradition of political parody?

The Chamber, which busted up the event 13 minutes after it began, sure didn’t think so, responding with a lawsuit alleging the Yes Men committed commercial identity theft by misappropriating the business group’s trademarks.

But after more than 3 ½ years with little action in the courts, the Chamber has decided enough is enough.  Late Friday, the group quietly dropped its lawsuit, saying further prosecution of the case “is unnecessary at this time.”

The Yes Men are somewhat famous for their hoaxes, having impersonated officials from the World Trade Organization Dow Chemical DOW -0.72% and Exxon Mobil XOM -0.74% at public events—and made movies about their exploits.

In the Chamber stunt, the Yes Men set up a fake Web site that mimicked the Chamber’s real homepage and, posing as Chamber officials, booked a press conference at Washington’s National Press Club to make a big announcement.

At a podium adorned with the Chamber’s real logo, one of the impersonators, Jacques Servin, posed as a spokesman for Chamber President Tom Donohue and said the business organization would do an about-face and throw its weight behind strong climate-change legislation, including a stiff carbon tax on polluters.

The event briefly fooled some media organizations that reported the Chamber was shifting positions on the issue.

The Chamber’s subsequent lawsuit alleged the Yes Men infringed its trademarks, engaged in false advertising and committed cyberpiracy that confused the public about the organization’s policy positions.  “The acts are nothing less than commercial identity theft masquerading as social activism,” the lawsuit alleged.

In response, the Yes Men argued the hoax was protected First Amendment speech that criticized the Chamber on a matter of public concern. “The Yes Men deliberately used the Chamber’s logo and service marks to poke fun at it,” the group said in court papers.  “Without using the Chamber’s marks, the parody would have lost virtually all of its force and purpose.”

The case was assigned to a Washington federal judge with a reputation for slow-moving dockets, and the case saw little activity for more than three years.  In April, the court reassigned the case to a newly confirmed judge on the court, who moved quickly to restart proceedings.

An updated version of the Chamber’s lawsuit would have been due in court Monday.  In dropping the lawsuit, the Chamber cited “the age of the case,” and the fact that it had taken control of the domain name the Yes Men previously used for their fake web site.

The Chamber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Yes Men lawyer Robert Corn-Revere of law firm Davis Wright Tremaine said, “We think the Chamber made the right decision.”