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Donziger recruited a raft of B-list celebrities — including Danny Glover, Mia Farrow and Trudie Styler (Mrs. Sting) — to be escorted to the alleged “Chernobyl of the Amazon” and express requisite outrage.

Donziger knew that big corporations, faced with complex lawsuits and a media circus, often simply pay up rather than risk brand damage. Chevron, by contrast, and commendably, said it would fight Donziger until hell froze over, then continue fighting on the ice. The company brought a civil suit against Donziger in the U.S. and in March 2014, the District Court for the Southern District of New York found that Donziger had obtained the Ecuadorean judgment via extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Donziger appealed but the damning judgment was upheld. Southern District Judge Lewis Kaplan stated that, “The wrongful actions of Donziger and his Ecuadorean legal team would be offensive to the laws of any nation that aspires to the rule of law.” He was perhaps looking north, where the case was meandering through the Canadian system.

Donziger had secured the services of a reputable Toronto lawyer, Alan J. Lenczner, who proceeded to take the ritual tour of Ecuadorean oil pollution and return with claims that he had “seen the devastation.” However, any devastation had been caused by state oil company Petroecuador, which had been operating in the area since Texaco’s departure and had been responsible for some 1,200 oil spills. Perhaps Lenczner’s most bizarre suggestion was that Chevron was a very rich company, so why not just pay up?