As you were writing this post, did you have a source for this, or was this hearsay? Not asking you to look for a source now, just curious about the quality of information in HN.
The direct quote from the complaint (found here on page 5: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/show_...) would be: Meanwhile, beginning in the mid-1980s, Exxon and other major oil and gas companies, including Mobil and Shell, took actions to protect their own business assets from the impacts of climate change, including raising the decks of offshore platforms, protecting pipelines from coastal erosion, and designing helipads, pipelines, and roads in the warming Arctic)
The investigative research that brought this up was a big development in proving that they knew on an institutional level that the science was real.