DOJ Considers Joining Texas Antitrust Lawsuit Against BlackRock and State Street

Bloomberg reported that the Justice Department is weighing whether to join the antitrust case that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 12 other state attorneys general brought against BLK and STT. Every other account of this we could find is a rewrite of that one report, so treat the DOJ angle as single-sourced until a second outlet or the department itself confirms it.

The underlying case is well documented. It was filed in the Eastern District of Texas in November 2024 against BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, alleging the asset managers used their combined stakes in publicly traded coal producers, coordinated through climate coalitions, to restrain coal output. The alleged harm in the complaint is higher electricity prices paid by consumers, not losses to fund investors, a distinction worth preserving because it determines what damages would look like. A motion to dismiss was largely denied in August 2025, Vanguard settled out for $29.5 million in February 2026, and the remaining defendants face a trial date in January 2028.

Federal participation would change the case's weight rather than its theory. A DOJ statement of interest or intervention brings the department's resources and, more importantly, signals that the theory that index-fund stewardship can constitute output coordination has support beyond a group of state AGs. For the two firms, the practical exposure is less about damages than about whether stewardship and proxy-voting practices across the passive complex have to be rebuilt.

Markets have not treated this as material so far. Neither stock sold off on the report. What to watch: any formal DOJ filing on the docket, how the remaining defendants' summary-judgment briefing frames the coalition membership evidence, and whether other state AGs join ahead of the 2028 trial.