Heh - Chevron bites back

Large corporations like Chevron are frequent targets of activist groups who sue for large sums of money with the intent that Chevron will cough up a couple million bucks and settle out of court. A group of environmental activists are finding out the hard way that Chevron doesn't always play by their rulebook. From Jazz Shaw writing at Hot Air:

Chevron takes shakedown lawyers to court in RICO trial
We�ve spent plenty of time and column space here over the last couple years keeping you up to date on the attempts of various corrupt Ecuador agencies and their Eco-warrior counterparts in the United States to sue Chevron over claimed damages in Ecuador�s oil fields. While such tactics have traditionally been successful against big corporations with deep pockets, choosing to simply pay off the pests rather than spending the time and money to fight them, not so with Chevron. The plaintiffs, led in large part by Manhattan lawyer Steven Donziger, tried to dig too deep, racking up a $19B judgment in an Ecuador court based on what turned out to be a staggering series of apparently fraudulent ploys. Chevron fought back and refused to cough up a dime.

And now, in what may prove to be a lesson in not waking a sleeping giant and making him too angry, Chevron has turned the tables and taken Donziger and company to court in NY claiming they engaged in racketeering.

Chevron alleges in the non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that a Manhattan lawyer, Steven Donziger, and others involved in the pollution case engaged in a �racketeering enterprise� and won the 2011 verdict through coercion, manufactured evidence and bribery of the Ecuadorean judge who wrote it. The company is seeking a ruling preventing the plaintiffs from trying to enforce the verdict in courts around the world. Burford reached an agreement with Chevron to provide testimony after being described in the lawsuit as a party involved in the scheme, Bogart said yesterday.

Donziger contends he did nothing unlawful in Ecuador and that Chevron engaged in similar tactics. Kaplan said in a ruling last week there�s �considerable evidence� the pollution case was �tainted by fraud.�

In a portion of testimony filed with the judge, Bogart said �we simply do not countenance in any way the kind of behavior this court has already found has occurred� and �we never would have invested� in the case if they were aware of the allegedly fraudulent activities.

This should be interesting to watch and we�ll definitely keep an eye on it. I don�t recall another case of this size where the person trying to pick the big company�s pockets wound up in front of a judge being brought to task for their actions. Donziger�s defense thus far seems to be, �Hey, everybody does it.� I�m not sure how well that�s going to wash here.

Discovery will be a bitch as usual. If large corporations did this more often, we wouldn't have such virulent activists.