A Withering Ruling in The Epic Chevron Case

摘要

For several years, corporate defense lawyers and lobbyists have watched Chevron use the federal anti-racketeering statute to combat mass-liability lawsuits. Now the results of the experiment are in-a major victory for the oil company in federal court in New York-and business advocates say other corporations will follow suit. On March 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that a multibil-lion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron in 2011 by a court in Ecuador was obtained by means of "coercion," "bribery," and other acts violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Kaplan named Steven Donziger, a New York plaintiffs' lawyer, as the mastermind of a legal campaign that began in 1993 and over two decades evolved into an elaborate shakedown scheme.