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Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win
The gripping story of one American lawyer’s obsessive crusade—waged at any cost—against Big Oil on behalf of the poor farmers and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest.
Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action lawsuit against multinational Texaco (which later merged with Chevron to become the third-largest corporation in America). The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron’s lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules. Donziger, a larger-than-life, loud-mouthed showman, proved himself a master orchestrator of the media, Hollywood, and public opinion. He cajoled and coerced Ecuadorian judges on the theory that his noble ends justified any means of persuasion. And in the end, he won an unlikely victory, a $19 billion judgment against Chevon--the biggest environmental damages award in history. But the company refused to surrender or compromise. Instead, Chevron targeted Donziger personally, and its counter-attack revealed damning evidence of his politicking and manipulation of evidence. Suddenly the verdict, and decades of Donziger’s single-minded pursuit of the case, began to unravel.
Written with the texture and flair of the best narrative nonfiction, Law of the Jungle is an unputdownable story in which there are countless victims, a vast region of ruined rivers and polluted rainforest, but very few heroes.
Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action lawsuit against multinational Texaco (which later merged with Chevron to become the third-largest corporation in America). The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron’s lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules. Donziger, a larger-than-life, loud-mouthed showman, proved himself a master orchestrator of the media, Hollywood, and public opinion. He cajoled and coerced Ecuadorian judges on the theory that his noble ends justified any means of persuasion. And in the end, he won an unlikely victory, a $19 billion judgment against Chevon--the biggest environmental damages award in history. But the company refused to surrender or compromise. Instead, Chevron targeted Donziger personally, and its counter-attack revealed damning evidence of his politicking and manipulation of evidence. Suddenly the verdict, and decades of Donziger’s single-minded pursuit of the case, began to unravel.
Written with the texture and flair of the best narrative nonfiction, Law of the Jungle is an unputdownable story in which there are countless victims, a vast region of ruined rivers and polluted rainforest, but very few heroes.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
29 people are currently reading
845 people want to read
About the author
Paul M. Barrett
10 books20 followersPAUL M. BARRETT I'm an assistant managing editor and senior feature writer at Bloomberg Businessweek. I've written two other books: American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion and The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America. I'm currently writing my 4th book about the fascinating legal battle in Ecuador pitting big oil against indigenous people and campesinos, not to mention a one of a kind American plaintiffs lawyer. Coming from Crown in winter 2014.
I live in Brooklyn with my wife Julie and our excellent dachshund Beau.
I live in Brooklyn with my wife Julie and our excellent dachshund Beau.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
October 16, 2014
It is difficult to comprehend how the relatively straightforward attempt by Ecuadorian plaintiffs to extract damages from oil companies for pollution caused in the course of their work became the perfect definition of a clusterf**k. Everybody got screwed.
Barrett goes through the history of the decades-long lawsuit on behalf of Ecuadorian peasants and tribespeople against Texaco, now part of Chevron, and highlights the bad judgment, culpable wrongdoing, bribery, fraud, and coercion committed by and on behalf of the plaintiffs and the defense.
Petroecuador, the national oil company of Ecuador, should have been named as co-defendant in the case to clean up pollution from seeping pits of oil byproduct left by the oil extractors because they partly owned the oil wells and pits and derived revenue from it but also because they already received some compensation from Texaco toward alleviating the environmental damage. They were not named as co-defendants, however, and did nothing to ameliorate the damage or the plaintiffs’ suffering. The plaintiffs were represented in Ecuadorian court by American lawyer Steven R. Donziger, who began as part of a legal team in 1993 and emerged as lead counsel in 2003.
In February of 2011 the Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron, ordering them to pay damages for clean-up of USD$18.1 billion. The award was later reduced to USD9.5 billion. Chevron filed countersuit in New York District Court, alleging misconduct by the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Donziger, and after several iterations of decisions, managed to obtain an injunction against collection of the damages anywhere in the United States. It is not over yet. Chevron may be named in a lawsuit in another South American country which may seek to recover that big payoff from Chevron.
What struck me about this fiasco is that everyone played to their worst selves. In wanting so badly to avoid being victimized, each group managed to create an environment of social toxicity to go with the demonstrated environmental toxicity. The Ecuadorian state did nothing to demand and enforce clean-up from its own state enterprise which was shoveling profits to them, and once the peasants were offered incentives to claim damages, some appeared to develop illnesses attributed to the illegal oil runoff. Everyone was implicated, everyone was venal, everyone failed.
The plaintiffs' lawyer, Donziger, spent so much time and money on the case he had to bring in a series of investors to keep the case going. Donziger promised percentages of the take to investors once the case was settled (read: won)—so much in fact that had investors all been paid back for their capital infusions, nothing would be left for clean-up!
Donziger, just out of Harvard Law School when he entered the case for the plaintiffs, stated early in the proceedings that he wanted this case to be a “business” model for future attempts to secure damages from large corporations operating without sufficient environmental controls overseas. Even a blatant cynic might blanch at the thought of such stupendous arrogance and this surely went some way to alienating and hardening the positions of Chevron executives, who could have easily fixed the environmental damages with some arm-twisting of Petroecuador, because they came to the case knowing Texaco’s legacy in the country.
But one might say the Americans were the dupes in this fight. They were stupid and arrogant and stubborn, but it was the corruption in Ecuador that really brought both sides to their knees and exposed their idiocy. In a state where the legal system is so little developed that politicians, judges, and lawyers are free to line their pockets at the expense of the people they are sworn to protect, all attempt to recoup losses by legal means are chimerical.
The author, Paul Barrett, is also a Harvard Law grad, and now works as an investigating journalist for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He has written several other nonfiction books, one of which is called Glock: The Rise of America's Gun. He manages to bring the mass of information produced by this case into manageable form so that we can understand the progress of the case quite well. He does not appear to take sides, though it is clear he found Donziger’s behavior an affront to his profession.
I came away thinking that this should be read by every law student dreaming of working in international or corporate law for the lessons and warnings it contains. A corporation cannot carry on in this manner and escape unscathed. Needless to say, one would want no law student to imagine they could emulate the hubris of Donziger; failure, in this world or the next, must surely be their fate. This history is positively Dante-esque in the venality of the actors.
I listened to the audio presentation of this book, published by Random House Audio and read by Joe Ochman. Ochman does a good job, threading the legal morass and making it comprehensible. The writing, and therefore the reading, was not completely dispassionate: there was some level of editorial disdain for the parties (who could help it?). There were times I wished I had the hard copy while I was listening, so if you have the opportunity to buy or borrow one or the other, you might like to get both. The hard copy is published by Crown.
Barrett goes through the history of the decades-long lawsuit on behalf of Ecuadorian peasants and tribespeople against Texaco, now part of Chevron, and highlights the bad judgment, culpable wrongdoing, bribery, fraud, and coercion committed by and on behalf of the plaintiffs and the defense.
Petroecuador, the national oil company of Ecuador, should have been named as co-defendant in the case to clean up pollution from seeping pits of oil byproduct left by the oil extractors because they partly owned the oil wells and pits and derived revenue from it but also because they already received some compensation from Texaco toward alleviating the environmental damage. They were not named as co-defendants, however, and did nothing to ameliorate the damage or the plaintiffs’ suffering. The plaintiffs were represented in Ecuadorian court by American lawyer Steven R. Donziger, who began as part of a legal team in 1993 and emerged as lead counsel in 2003.
In February of 2011 the Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron, ordering them to pay damages for clean-up of USD$18.1 billion. The award was later reduced to USD9.5 billion. Chevron filed countersuit in New York District Court, alleging misconduct by the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Donziger, and after several iterations of decisions, managed to obtain an injunction against collection of the damages anywhere in the United States. It is not over yet. Chevron may be named in a lawsuit in another South American country which may seek to recover that big payoff from Chevron.
What struck me about this fiasco is that everyone played to their worst selves. In wanting so badly to avoid being victimized, each group managed to create an environment of social toxicity to go with the demonstrated environmental toxicity. The Ecuadorian state did nothing to demand and enforce clean-up from its own state enterprise which was shoveling profits to them, and once the peasants were offered incentives to claim damages, some appeared to develop illnesses attributed to the illegal oil runoff. Everyone was implicated, everyone was venal, everyone failed.
The plaintiffs' lawyer, Donziger, spent so much time and money on the case he had to bring in a series of investors to keep the case going. Donziger promised percentages of the take to investors once the case was settled (read: won)—so much in fact that had investors all been paid back for their capital infusions, nothing would be left for clean-up!
Donziger, just out of Harvard Law School when he entered the case for the plaintiffs, stated early in the proceedings that he wanted this case to be a “business” model for future attempts to secure damages from large corporations operating without sufficient environmental controls overseas. Even a blatant cynic might blanch at the thought of such stupendous arrogance and this surely went some way to alienating and hardening the positions of Chevron executives, who could have easily fixed the environmental damages with some arm-twisting of Petroecuador, because they came to the case knowing Texaco’s legacy in the country.
But one might say the Americans were the dupes in this fight. They were stupid and arrogant and stubborn, but it was the corruption in Ecuador that really brought both sides to their knees and exposed their idiocy. In a state where the legal system is so little developed that politicians, judges, and lawyers are free to line their pockets at the expense of the people they are sworn to protect, all attempt to recoup losses by legal means are chimerical.
The author, Paul Barrett, is also a Harvard Law grad, and now works as an investigating journalist for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He has written several other nonfiction books, one of which is called Glock: The Rise of America's Gun. He manages to bring the mass of information produced by this case into manageable form so that we can understand the progress of the case quite well. He does not appear to take sides, though it is clear he found Donziger’s behavior an affront to his profession.
I came away thinking that this should be read by every law student dreaming of working in international or corporate law for the lessons and warnings it contains. A corporation cannot carry on in this manner and escape unscathed. Needless to say, one would want no law student to imagine they could emulate the hubris of Donziger; failure, in this world or the next, must surely be their fate. This history is positively Dante-esque in the venality of the actors.
I listened to the audio presentation of this book, published by Random House Audio and read by Joe Ochman. Ochman does a good job, threading the legal morass and making it comprehensible. The writing, and therefore the reading, was not completely dispassionate: there was some level of editorial disdain for the parties (who could help it?). There were times I wished I had the hard copy while I was listening, so if you have the opportunity to buy or borrow one or the other, you might like to get both. The hard copy is published by Crown.
June 19, 2015
From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2015/...
Paul M. Barrett's Law of the Jungle is an unsatisfying book. Barrett is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, and wrote about the Chevron case in Ecuador. Given the tone of the book, he also took what seems to be an intense dislike to Steven Donziger, the lawyer who was leading the anti-Chevron side. I lost count of the snide remarks. That colors the entire book.
The case itself is treated superficially since the focus is generally on Donziger. The basic thrust is that what Donziger says/does is suspect, and that Chevron's actions often (though to be fair, not always) can be taken at face value or considered to be logical. Barrett clearly views Chevron with sympathy, believing that at a minimum they are not responsible for cleanup since Petroecuador also spilled oil. The story is framed as a corrupt shakedown orchestrated by an unlikable ego-maniac. Yes, people may be suffering, but that's not Chevron (or Texaco's before it was bought) problem.
It's instructive, though, to see this fairly cold, pro-Chevron side of things. From Barrett's perspective, this is really a problem for Ecuador. After all, past governments made money from the oil and could've spent some it on cleanup. But they're too corrupt. Chevron can blithely walk away without a care, and without a shred of guilt. With all its investments, it actually was a positive force.
Paul M. Barrett's Law of the Jungle is an unsatisfying book. Barrett is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, and wrote about the Chevron case in Ecuador. Given the tone of the book, he also took what seems to be an intense dislike to Steven Donziger, the lawyer who was leading the anti-Chevron side. I lost count of the snide remarks. That colors the entire book.
The case itself is treated superficially since the focus is generally on Donziger. The basic thrust is that what Donziger says/does is suspect, and that Chevron's actions often (though to be fair, not always) can be taken at face value or considered to be logical. Barrett clearly views Chevron with sympathy, believing that at a minimum they are not responsible for cleanup since Petroecuador also spilled oil. The story is framed as a corrupt shakedown orchestrated by an unlikable ego-maniac. Yes, people may be suffering, but that's not Chevron (or Texaco's before it was bought) problem.
It's instructive, though, to see this fairly cold, pro-Chevron side of things. From Barrett's perspective, this is really a problem for Ecuador. After all, past governments made money from the oil and could've spent some it on cleanup. But they're too corrupt. Chevron can blithely walk away without a care, and without a shred of guilt. With all its investments, it actually was a positive force.
July 31, 2014
Wow a truly well writeen story that does not need emebelleshing. As corporation show in this book that they truly don't care about the poor and will spend so much money to ensure that they endure no consequences. Shows how the ones endure the worst pain are likely to never ger justice while the corupt elite continue on with their business.
October 11, 2014
Paul Barrett’s Law of the Jungle is a fast-paced and compelling account of legal corruption and corporate wrongdoing, in which a passionate advocate is undone through his own hubris and unscrupulous pursuit of what began as a noble crusade to rescue the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants from massive pollution by Big Oil. Although the dominant theme is the tragedy of single lawyer undone by his loss of a moral compass, the story could equally well be read as a giant corporation’s escape from deserved liability as a result of the fecklessness of the legal system and the failings of the victims’ advocates. In the end, the Indians of the Amazon are faced with ongoing, unchecked pollution, and the oil company’s victory serves as a cautionary tale to any lawyer who dares to attempt to hold Big Oil accountable for its actions.
The signal failure of the American legal system from the outset of the case was to delay adjudication on the merits for nine and half years while it noodled over the question of forum non conveniens, i.e. where the case could best be tried, and in the end turned over the case at Big Oil’s request to a weak and corrupt third-world judiciary that was wholly unequipped to handle it. Much to the surprise of the oil company’s battalion of high-priced lawyers, in the corrupt world of Ecuadorian politics they were outmaneuvered at every turn by a no-holds-barred advocate whose dirty tricks more than matched their own. It is clear that the oil company was no more principled in its conduct of litigation in Ecuador than plaintiff’s attorney Steven Donziger; its clumsy Armada was simply far less agile and maneuverable than Donziger’s slick fleet of native activists, paid off experts, and corrupt judges and politicians, who deployed a devastating public relations campaign complete with rock stars, investigations on Sixty Minutes, and a canned documentary film, resulting in a $19 billion judgment against Chevron.
Donziger’s dishonest tactics ultimately proved his undoing when Chevron initiated a ruthless campaign against him under the racketeering laws in the American court system after 19 years of litigation – with virtually no cleanup.
Barrett offers a trenchant final chapter of conclusions at the end of the book, which it would be tempting to read first, but one question that lingers is whether the Donziger debacle and subsequent Supreme Court rulings gutting the Alien Tort Statute leave any hope that the rights of indigenous people trampled by American multinationals can be vindicated by legitimate means. Donziger only prevailed in Ecuador because he was more proficient at dirty tricks than Big Oil, but the book leaves open the question whether in light of its refusal to hear the case on the merits in a fair forum, the American legal system has the will or capacity to hold its corporate citizens accountable for their irresponsible actions abroad. In the end, the abiding impression this book leaves is one of deep pessimism.
The signal failure of the American legal system from the outset of the case was to delay adjudication on the merits for nine and half years while it noodled over the question of forum non conveniens, i.e. where the case could best be tried, and in the end turned over the case at Big Oil’s request to a weak and corrupt third-world judiciary that was wholly unequipped to handle it. Much to the surprise of the oil company’s battalion of high-priced lawyers, in the corrupt world of Ecuadorian politics they were outmaneuvered at every turn by a no-holds-barred advocate whose dirty tricks more than matched their own. It is clear that the oil company was no more principled in its conduct of litigation in Ecuador than plaintiff’s attorney Steven Donziger; its clumsy Armada was simply far less agile and maneuverable than Donziger’s slick fleet of native activists, paid off experts, and corrupt judges and politicians, who deployed a devastating public relations campaign complete with rock stars, investigations on Sixty Minutes, and a canned documentary film, resulting in a $19 billion judgment against Chevron.
Donziger’s dishonest tactics ultimately proved his undoing when Chevron initiated a ruthless campaign against him under the racketeering laws in the American court system after 19 years of litigation – with virtually no cleanup.
Barrett offers a trenchant final chapter of conclusions at the end of the book, which it would be tempting to read first, but one question that lingers is whether the Donziger debacle and subsequent Supreme Court rulings gutting the Alien Tort Statute leave any hope that the rights of indigenous people trampled by American multinationals can be vindicated by legitimate means. Donziger only prevailed in Ecuador because he was more proficient at dirty tricks than Big Oil, but the book leaves open the question whether in light of its refusal to hear the case on the merits in a fair forum, the American legal system has the will or capacity to hold its corporate citizens accountable for their irresponsible actions abroad. In the end, the abiding impression this book leaves is one of deep pessimism.
January 11, 2019
I’ve been following the Chevron-Texaco Ecuador case for quite some time and despite Barrett’s gushing 281-page pro-Corporation love letter that is this book, I genuinely find it hard to believe that the little guy in this ongoing saga is truly the bad guy both Chevron and Barrett want us to believe.
Barrett’s personal distaste for Donzinger is palpable from page one, which makes readers question Barrett’s own motives and inspiration for writing the book. What is Barrett not disclosing as the author? What does he stand to gain for writing such a seemingly biased and imbalanced book?
I’ll give this to Barrett, he’s a good writer, but his bias bleeds through every line making it hard at times to take him seriously. He basks in elevating the belief that economic growth should not be hindered by human rights, environmental or social justice. Rather, he appears to personally believe that average humans are obstacles towards corporate expansion, and is sure to include “facts” that predominantly support this belief rather than present the reader with information from both sides of the law suit. For sources, Barrett seems to only use Donzinger’s personal journal as well as cherry-picked, out of context footage from the movie Crude to craft his written details of scenes in the book — all pieces of evidence Chevron used in the law suit against the plaintiff. While it is written as if Barrett himself were present at events he describes, instead he’s simply transcribing his words from other sources—sources which were all used by Chevron in court to attack Donzinger. Where is Barrett’s independent research and reporting? Sadly, absent.
Barrett clearly has a personal vendetta against Donziger. I would love to hear what Donziger did to Barrett that triggered Barrett so deeply as to feel the need to write such a repeatedly negative description of him (beyond the outburst at a cafe described in the last chapter—because if that one encounter was the thing that triggered Barrett to write this revenge book, then Barrett is insanely immature himself. Perhaps his manhood was threatened...?). I understand the importance of creating a villain character to drive a story, but if Barrett is to call himself a journalist, then his depiction of Donziger is unethical and too heavily driving a personal agenda.
The scrutiny with which he picks apart Donzinger’s tactics is completely imbalanced when compared to Chevron’s legal tactics, which remain nearly absent from the book. Why such weight on the underdog? Was the corporation just less interesting a character? Or does Barrett have to avenge a personal vendetta? Or is Barret simply a lazy “journalist” incapable of pulling similar data about the inner workings of Chevron? Rather than try to provide a balanced story like a real journalist with ethics, Barrett fails entirely to dig into Chevron in the same way he does Donzinger.
At one point Barrett states: “He saw Donziger as a promising main character for a serious film”. Barrett clearly thought the same, hence this biased book.
It is clear the Chevron-Texaco Ecuador case is complex and not one entity is fully at fault, but one thing is for certain: blaming the victim is an age old tactic used by selfish bullies—and Barrett appears to be one of the latter.
Barrett’s personal distaste for Donzinger is palpable from page one, which makes readers question Barrett’s own motives and inspiration for writing the book. What is Barrett not disclosing as the author? What does he stand to gain for writing such a seemingly biased and imbalanced book?
I’ll give this to Barrett, he’s a good writer, but his bias bleeds through every line making it hard at times to take him seriously. He basks in elevating the belief that economic growth should not be hindered by human rights, environmental or social justice. Rather, he appears to personally believe that average humans are obstacles towards corporate expansion, and is sure to include “facts” that predominantly support this belief rather than present the reader with information from both sides of the law suit. For sources, Barrett seems to only use Donzinger’s personal journal as well as cherry-picked, out of context footage from the movie Crude to craft his written details of scenes in the book — all pieces of evidence Chevron used in the law suit against the plaintiff. While it is written as if Barrett himself were present at events he describes, instead he’s simply transcribing his words from other sources—sources which were all used by Chevron in court to attack Donzinger. Where is Barrett’s independent research and reporting? Sadly, absent.
Barrett clearly has a personal vendetta against Donziger. I would love to hear what Donziger did to Barrett that triggered Barrett so deeply as to feel the need to write such a repeatedly negative description of him (beyond the outburst at a cafe described in the last chapter—because if that one encounter was the thing that triggered Barrett to write this revenge book, then Barrett is insanely immature himself. Perhaps his manhood was threatened...?). I understand the importance of creating a villain character to drive a story, but if Barrett is to call himself a journalist, then his depiction of Donziger is unethical and too heavily driving a personal agenda.
The scrutiny with which he picks apart Donzinger’s tactics is completely imbalanced when compared to Chevron’s legal tactics, which remain nearly absent from the book. Why such weight on the underdog? Was the corporation just less interesting a character? Or does Barrett have to avenge a personal vendetta? Or is Barret simply a lazy “journalist” incapable of pulling similar data about the inner workings of Chevron? Rather than try to provide a balanced story like a real journalist with ethics, Barrett fails entirely to dig into Chevron in the same way he does Donzinger.
At one point Barrett states: “He saw Donziger as a promising main character for a serious film”. Barrett clearly thought the same, hence this biased book.
It is clear the Chevron-Texaco Ecuador case is complex and not one entity is fully at fault, but one thing is for certain: blaming the victim is an age old tactic used by selfish bullies—and Barrett appears to be one of the latter.
February 20, 2019
For sure, this is a biased piece. I try to assess the bias of an article by checking what is often called Russell conjugation or emotive conjugation. The adjective used in a statement reveals the bias. For example, the three statements are the same: He is firm; he is stubborn; he is a pig headed fool! The adjective used for the lawyer steve Donziger are cunning, brash, grandiose, manipulative, corrupt, etc. The adjectives used for chevron are fair, upholding contracts, etc. Make up your mind.
I think it is clearly a biased piece of journalism. Any journalist who is worth their salt, would not ask for a causal evidence for cancer. Causal evidence can only be obtained by randomized control trials. To display a causal relationship, one has to select a fair sample of people and split them into two groups, expose the first group to high levels of petrochemicals, expose second group to no or near zero petrochemicals and then check for the difference in cancer rates. Any regulatory authority which would allow for such an experiment is completely lunatic. This moron who doesn't understand the different types of scientific evidence is utterly incapable of reporting on this topic. I am a scientist and I do this for a living. This journalist is clearly asking for evidence that cannot and should not be generated.
Having said that, Donziger isn't a paragon of virtue either. Irony is, if he was morally ethical, the chevron folks would have trampled his case by corrupting the officials.
I should actually look at some real evidence to make up my mind about this story.
I think it is clearly a biased piece of journalism. Any journalist who is worth their salt, would not ask for a causal evidence for cancer. Causal evidence can only be obtained by randomized control trials. To display a causal relationship, one has to select a fair sample of people and split them into two groups, expose the first group to high levels of petrochemicals, expose second group to no or near zero petrochemicals and then check for the difference in cancer rates. Any regulatory authority which would allow for such an experiment is completely lunatic. This moron who doesn't understand the different types of scientific evidence is utterly incapable of reporting on this topic. I am a scientist and I do this for a living. This journalist is clearly asking for evidence that cannot and should not be generated.
Having said that, Donziger isn't a paragon of virtue either. Irony is, if he was morally ethical, the chevron folks would have trampled his case by corrupting the officials.
I should actually look at some real evidence to make up my mind about this story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 24, 2014
Unsettling story of 20 year battle between Texaco/Chevron and Steven Donziger over the mess left in Ecuador post oil drilling. Well researched, well written. So much chicanery (on both sides) even Hollywood might have trouble selling the truth to an audience. The tale has much to say about the lack of responsibility big corporations feel for the poor they tread upon, the insane amount of money they're willing to spend to remain irresponsible, the broken system of jurisprudence that fails to protect those on the bottom, and lawyers willing to twist the law to the breaking point and beyond. You might have seen the documentary "Crude" which is part of this story. Check out what happened behind the scenes depicted. So after two decades and many hundreds of millions of dollars spent in this legal battle, how much went to the natives living in the ruined rain forest? The answer is as sickening as the oily water and land they were left with.
I received this book for free through Goodreads.
I received this book for free through Goodreads.
November 25, 2014
Interesting nonfiction work about the lawsuit in Equador against Texico (and ultimately Chevron after they bought Texico). Mr. Barrett lays out the facts, or lack thereof, of the case against this multinational company. This was a multi decade battle that played out both in the US and in Equador ultimately never benefiting the supposed plaintiffs. It is the story of one lawyer who made a career of this one suit to the detriment of his own clients. As an attorney myself I am outraged at the behavior demonstrated by many of the parties in this suit.
I received this book as part of a good reads giveaway but the opinions expressed are my own.
I received this book as part of a good reads giveaway but the opinions expressed are my own.
December 26, 2014
This is a really interesting book,
a degenerate lawyer pulls every dirty trick he can,
it looks like he'll win billions in fees,
but what happens in the end?
a degenerate lawyer pulls every dirty trick he can,
it looks like he'll win billions in fees,
but what happens in the end?
December 29, 2015
The legal battle over Texaco's petroleum contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon has taken so many twists and turns over the decades that it can't easily be summarized even in a longish online think piece, so Paul Barrett's well-organized book is probably as good a place to start as any. The story is a testament to the idea that for every lawyer there is an equal and opposite lawyer: in this case, the crusading obsessive Steven Donziger versus the legal might of Chevron, one of the largest and most-profitable corporations on the planet, duking it out over billions of dollars in liability for environmental contamination.
Barrett's overall stance is slightly pro-Chevron, but his telling of the basic facts of the case is fairly persuasive. Starting in the 1960s, Texaco discovered oil in a previously undeveloped region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and it operated the oil fields in a consortium with the Ecuadorian government until 1992. In the process, Texaco left behind waste oil in hundreds of unlined pits in the rain forest (!!!), dumped vast quantities of toxic "produced" water directly into the rivers, and drove a rapid settlement and industrialization process in a previously isolated indigenous region. Texaco also directed that any records of environmental mishaps be destroyed, aided by a series of unstable Quito-based governments who sought to profit off the oil revenues, rather than regulate the environmental harm.
In 1993, a team of lawyers led by Steven Donziger filed suit in New York on behalf of residents of the contaminated region (Aguinda v Texaco). Texaco successfully argued that the suit should be moved to Ecuador, and in 2003 the suit was refiled in Lago Agrio, right in the heart of the oil fields. Chevron acquired the lawsuit when it bought Texaco in 2000. For their part, Chevron argues that a 1998 agreement to remediate a portion of the oil pits absolves them of any liability, and that any remaining contamination is the responsibility of the government of Ecuador. The plaintiffs counter that the agreement did not apply to private individuals, who are still free to bring lawsuits, and that because Texaco made the day-to-day operational decisions they are the proper liable party.
We visited the Lago Agrio region in late 2008, while the Aguinda lawsuit was still going on, and took a "toxics tour" organized by the plaintiff's organization. We saw a shocking level of oil contamination in the midst of a beautiful rain forest -- large pools of oil that had apparently been sitting there since the '70s, some with installed overflow pipes leading into the nearby rivers, some close to houses and communities. We were also taken to sites that Texaco claimed to have remediated in the 1990s, where modest homes sat on top of dirt that had been bulldozed over the oil. A few shovelfuls quickly uncovered dirt that stank like oil. Since that trip I've been mildly obsessed with the case.
In 2011, Chevron's strategy failed and the Lago Agrio court found Chevron guilty and ordered a massive $9.5 billion judgment (doubled to $19B if they didn't say "sorry"). However, Chevron counter-attacked with a series of discovery motions that found that Donziger, Pablo Fajardo and the other plaintiffs' lawyers had basically selected and ghost-written the report of the court-appointed expert -- a massive no-no in U.S. courts, although Donziger claims the norms are different in Ecuador. Chevron then filed and won a RICO suit against Donziger in U.S. courts. The judge prevented the plaintiffs from collecting damages on Chevron assets in the U.S. and found Donziger guilty of racketeering for allegedly bribing and ghostwriting the judge's final verdict. Which sounds pretty bad, but consider the racketeering evidence is largely based on uncorroborated testimony from an unreliable former judge who is now on the Chevron payroll and living in the U.S.
Barnett largely concludes that Donziger is guilty and seems quite attracted to the story of a flawed idealist who crossed ethical lines in pursuit of justice. I would tend to agree that Donziger badly overstepped a number of bounds. He has admitted to "mistakes" but denies any serious wrongdoing. In the dirty tricks department, Chevron's hands are not clean either, which does tend to raise questions of reasonable doubt about the RICO verdict.
(The legal intricacies and dramatic reversals have been fodder for a number of online legal analysts and "chevronologists." If you are curious to go deeper down the rabbit hole, you can read Donziger's own account of the case here, Chevron's take here, and an interesting analysis of the RICO verdict from a legal group sympathetic to Donziger here.)
It's not clear what will happen next. The RICO case is currently under appeal, but for the moment the plaintiffs are unable to collect any rewards in U.S. courts. Chevron holds no assets in Ecuador, but lawsuits have been filed in Canada, Argentina and Brazil. The plaintiffs have a new lawyer and are arguing that whatever Donziger's screw-ups they should not be held accountable for his sins. I would have thought that given the convoluted history a new trial might be a good idea, but as several legal experts have pointed out, the Lago Agrio verdict was upheld on appeal by another Ecuadorian court, of which there has been no allegations of impropriety. Texaco originally argued that it was Ecuador's case to decide; well, they seem to have gotten their wish.
It's at the conclusion that Barrett's "pox on both houses" reporting style partly misses the larger picture. The facts of the case seem to indicate that Chevron is almost certainly liable for at least a fraction of the contamination. Petroecuador certainly shares responsibility, but that fact does not absolve Chevron. But is it even possible to bring one of the world's largest multi-national corporations to justice? As Barrett notes, it was more cost-effective for Chevron in the short-run to "fight until hell freezes over" and then "fight it out on the ice" rather than settle (seen as a sign of weakness by management). But in the long run, Chevron has spent a few billion in legal fees, the rainforest remains polluted, the region remains quite poor, local inhabitants continue to get sick, and environmental justice remains elusive.
Barrett's overall stance is slightly pro-Chevron, but his telling of the basic facts of the case is fairly persuasive. Starting in the 1960s, Texaco discovered oil in a previously undeveloped region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and it operated the oil fields in a consortium with the Ecuadorian government until 1992. In the process, Texaco left behind waste oil in hundreds of unlined pits in the rain forest (!!!), dumped vast quantities of toxic "produced" water directly into the rivers, and drove a rapid settlement and industrialization process in a previously isolated indigenous region. Texaco also directed that any records of environmental mishaps be destroyed, aided by a series of unstable Quito-based governments who sought to profit off the oil revenues, rather than regulate the environmental harm.
In 1993, a team of lawyers led by Steven Donziger filed suit in New York on behalf of residents of the contaminated region (Aguinda v Texaco). Texaco successfully argued that the suit should be moved to Ecuador, and in 2003 the suit was refiled in Lago Agrio, right in the heart of the oil fields. Chevron acquired the lawsuit when it bought Texaco in 2000. For their part, Chevron argues that a 1998 agreement to remediate a portion of the oil pits absolves them of any liability, and that any remaining contamination is the responsibility of the government of Ecuador. The plaintiffs counter that the agreement did not apply to private individuals, who are still free to bring lawsuits, and that because Texaco made the day-to-day operational decisions they are the proper liable party.
We visited the Lago Agrio region in late 2008, while the Aguinda lawsuit was still going on, and took a "toxics tour" organized by the plaintiff's organization. We saw a shocking level of oil contamination in the midst of a beautiful rain forest -- large pools of oil that had apparently been sitting there since the '70s, some with installed overflow pipes leading into the nearby rivers, some close to houses and communities. We were also taken to sites that Texaco claimed to have remediated in the 1990s, where modest homes sat on top of dirt that had been bulldozed over the oil. A few shovelfuls quickly uncovered dirt that stank like oil. Since that trip I've been mildly obsessed with the case.
In 2011, Chevron's strategy failed and the Lago Agrio court found Chevron guilty and ordered a massive $9.5 billion judgment (doubled to $19B if they didn't say "sorry"). However, Chevron counter-attacked with a series of discovery motions that found that Donziger, Pablo Fajardo and the other plaintiffs' lawyers had basically selected and ghost-written the report of the court-appointed expert -- a massive no-no in U.S. courts, although Donziger claims the norms are different in Ecuador. Chevron then filed and won a RICO suit against Donziger in U.S. courts. The judge prevented the plaintiffs from collecting damages on Chevron assets in the U.S. and found Donziger guilty of racketeering for allegedly bribing and ghostwriting the judge's final verdict. Which sounds pretty bad, but consider the racketeering evidence is largely based on uncorroborated testimony from an unreliable former judge who is now on the Chevron payroll and living in the U.S.
Barnett largely concludes that Donziger is guilty and seems quite attracted to the story of a flawed idealist who crossed ethical lines in pursuit of justice. I would tend to agree that Donziger badly overstepped a number of bounds. He has admitted to "mistakes" but denies any serious wrongdoing. In the dirty tricks department, Chevron's hands are not clean either, which does tend to raise questions of reasonable doubt about the RICO verdict.
(The legal intricacies and dramatic reversals have been fodder for a number of online legal analysts and "chevronologists." If you are curious to go deeper down the rabbit hole, you can read Donziger's own account of the case here, Chevron's take here, and an interesting analysis of the RICO verdict from a legal group sympathetic to Donziger here.)
It's not clear what will happen next. The RICO case is currently under appeal, but for the moment the plaintiffs are unable to collect any rewards in U.S. courts. Chevron holds no assets in Ecuador, but lawsuits have been filed in Canada, Argentina and Brazil. The plaintiffs have a new lawyer and are arguing that whatever Donziger's screw-ups they should not be held accountable for his sins. I would have thought that given the convoluted history a new trial might be a good idea, but as several legal experts have pointed out, the Lago Agrio verdict was upheld on appeal by another Ecuadorian court, of which there has been no allegations of impropriety. Texaco originally argued that it was Ecuador's case to decide; well, they seem to have gotten their wish.
It's at the conclusion that Barrett's "pox on both houses" reporting style partly misses the larger picture. The facts of the case seem to indicate that Chevron is almost certainly liable for at least a fraction of the contamination. Petroecuador certainly shares responsibility, but that fact does not absolve Chevron. But is it even possible to bring one of the world's largest multi-national corporations to justice? As Barrett notes, it was more cost-effective for Chevron in the short-run to "fight until hell freezes over" and then "fight it out on the ice" rather than settle (seen as a sign of weakness by management). But in the long run, Chevron has spent a few billion in legal fees, the rainforest remains polluted, the region remains quite poor, local inhabitants continue to get sick, and environmental justice remains elusive.
October 15, 2018
This book totally made me sick! This is the true story of trying to achieve justice for the indigenous people of Northeast Ecuador in the Napo region where the Texaco Oil Company did oil drilling in the early 1990's. Texaco, not being held to the regulations enforced in the U.S., sickened the indigenous people by polluting their streams, wells, and soil, and any other way that could be harmful to the environment and people.
Everyone, with the exception of the suffering people, were corrupt. The lawyer bringing the case against Chevron/Texaco, the company, the Ecuadorian government and justice system, and the experts and consultants did dishonorable things to feather their pockets. The case went on for over 20 years, and the indigenous people never received any of the supposed millions of dollars that should have come to them.
People of the world should read this account and demand greater safeguards when dealing with foreign countries that wish to exploit their land, their people, and their resources. Off my soap box now!
Everyone, with the exception of the suffering people, were corrupt. The lawyer bringing the case against Chevron/Texaco, the company, the Ecuadorian government and justice system, and the experts and consultants did dishonorable things to feather their pockets. The case went on for over 20 years, and the indigenous people never received any of the supposed millions of dollars that should have come to them.
People of the world should read this account and demand greater safeguards when dealing with foreign countries that wish to exploit their land, their people, and their resources. Off my soap box now!
July 16, 2019
The publisher describes this book as "gripping." I did not find it gripping. Parts of it were booorrring.
There were definitely interesting parts, and the subject itself is one that interests me. But, dare I say it, the book was TOO well researched. The best chapter was Chapter 24 - Conclusions. This could have made a good long essay.
Discussing this with my Food for Thought book club - interested to see how they react!
There were definitely interesting parts, and the subject itself is one that interests me. But, dare I say it, the book was TOO well researched. The best chapter was Chapter 24 - Conclusions. This could have made a good long essay.
Discussing this with my Food for Thought book club - interested to see how they react!
March 12, 2018
A well written summary of a twenty-plus year lawsuit against chevron for pollution in Ecuador. The author does a good job avoiding legal/technical jargon and instead focuses on the people involved in the litigation.
November 5, 2020
A pretty well written story with an all too often disappointing outcome. The real people burdened with the disaster left behind by the oil industry are used as pawns for financial gain by a legal elite and left with little to no benefit for years of false hope and frustration.
September 5, 2024
This was for class, and not my usual read, but it was written in a way that still held my attention. This book is a fascinating inside look at corruption in litigation from nearly every angle. I truly had no idea so much was going on behind the face of the Ecuador lawsuit until now.
February 5, 2021
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December 18, 2021
pompous ass lawyers trying to do their best.......i suppose.......
March 1, 2023
Would you bend ethical boundaries if it were to fight a greater evil? How far would you go before realizing you went too far?
A cautionary tale where two wrongs don't make a right.
A cautionary tale where two wrongs don't make a right.
December 13, 2023
I love how this exposes the complexities of norteamericano liberal eco-piety, and I say this as a card-carrying norteamericano eco-liberal.
January 1, 2025
Informative and unbiased. Some dull parts, but interesting for the most part. The author seemed to give each side a fair assessment.
January 31, 2026
Thought I was going to law school for a min so I read this book. Fuck Enron dude
January 31, 2026
Good book but a terrible story about how greed and ignorance trampled over environment, people and other animals.
July 27, 2014
I read a galley copy that I received from the author, Paul Barrett, a couple months ago when I was up visiting New York City. I met Paul when he came out with his previous book, Glock. Since I know firearms, Glocks, forums, blogs, and social media, I helped show and introduce him around. I'm helping him again. And, as part of that, I read _Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett
Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win_.
I know a lot less about what happened in Ecuador that I do about plastic pistols. That said, that helped since the non fiction book was a cliff hanger for me. I didn't ruin it by jumping on Wikipedia or reading Paul's reporting about the Cofán Indians v. Texaco/Chevron or spoiling it by looking at Wikipedia, so the subject was new to me.
One thing I notices about this book that was very much like _Glock_ was how balanced the reporting is. This book is going to piss off both the environmentalists as well as the free market capitalists as well. The sign of good reporting is that both sides feel slighted.
While this book is primarily an exploration of the cult of personality known as Steven Donziger, the larger-than-life, Harvard-educated, class-action lawyer who took an unwinnable David and Goliath case between the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio oil field case (the indigenous Cofán people) against Texaco (now part of Chevron).
Like any David v Goliath case, I thought I would be rooting for Donziger and his lieutenant Pablo Fajardo; however, both sides played for their lives and Steven Donziger was maybe a little too open and honest about what lengths he was willing to take to win the lawsuit.
At the end of the day, there were two heroes: Pablo Fajardo and the Rule of Law.
I also highly recommend watching the movie _Crude_ -- it's a documentary commissioned by Donziger and directed by Joe Berlinger -- it's amazing to put faces to names and voices to text after you've explored such a maddening international circus.
Hell, there's even a cameo by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, as Steven Donziger brings world attention to one of the worst oil spill/environmental disaster, the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador.
I must admit, it took me a while to read the book. The book's beautifully written and is easy to read. Like I said before, it's balanced, journalistic, and even brings the author into the narrative (it goes from strikingly objective to rather personal); however, it still was a challenging read because I am neither a lawyer nor an environmentalist.
That said, it's amazing to see how the legal, judicial, environmental, and capitalist systems work, under the hood and when nobody should look (note: thing twice about commissioning an all-access documentary film crew if you have impulse control and tend to want to blurt morally ambiguous advice and offer no-holds-barred strategy that may well be how things are done in Quito but don't come across very well in US Courts -- just don't do it!).
I am glad I read the book. It changed me. As you might have guessed, I am skeptical and don't consider myself an environmentalist at all. I am also neither a lawyer nor a political operator. That said, I wonder where I have been hiding because I had not heard anything about this case at all -- and I wonder why. I guess I am in a silo.
That's the good thing about the book: I believe it'll be able to speak outside of and across the silos and echo chambers that tend to only preach to the choir.
Paul Barrett did the same thing with his book Glock: he wrote a book that transcended the pro- and anti-gun conversation.
The Law of the Jungle has surely been able to transcend both the pro- and anti-environmentalists and also the pro- and anti-capitalists, too.
I haven't read a book that has changed me as much since reading Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum.
Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win_.
I know a lot less about what happened in Ecuador that I do about plastic pistols. That said, that helped since the non fiction book was a cliff hanger for me. I didn't ruin it by jumping on Wikipedia or reading Paul's reporting about the Cofán Indians v. Texaco/Chevron or spoiling it by looking at Wikipedia, so the subject was new to me.
One thing I notices about this book that was very much like _Glock_ was how balanced the reporting is. This book is going to piss off both the environmentalists as well as the free market capitalists as well. The sign of good reporting is that both sides feel slighted.
While this book is primarily an exploration of the cult of personality known as Steven Donziger, the larger-than-life, Harvard-educated, class-action lawyer who took an unwinnable David and Goliath case between the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio oil field case (the indigenous Cofán people) against Texaco (now part of Chevron).
Like any David v Goliath case, I thought I would be rooting for Donziger and his lieutenant Pablo Fajardo; however, both sides played for their lives and Steven Donziger was maybe a little too open and honest about what lengths he was willing to take to win the lawsuit.
At the end of the day, there were two heroes: Pablo Fajardo and the Rule of Law.
I also highly recommend watching the movie _Crude_ -- it's a documentary commissioned by Donziger and directed by Joe Berlinger -- it's amazing to put faces to names and voices to text after you've explored such a maddening international circus.
Hell, there's even a cameo by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, as Steven Donziger brings world attention to one of the worst oil spill/environmental disaster, the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador.
I must admit, it took me a while to read the book. The book's beautifully written and is easy to read. Like I said before, it's balanced, journalistic, and even brings the author into the narrative (it goes from strikingly objective to rather personal); however, it still was a challenging read because I am neither a lawyer nor an environmentalist.
That said, it's amazing to see how the legal, judicial, environmental, and capitalist systems work, under the hood and when nobody should look (note: thing twice about commissioning an all-access documentary film crew if you have impulse control and tend to want to blurt morally ambiguous advice and offer no-holds-barred strategy that may well be how things are done in Quito but don't come across very well in US Courts -- just don't do it!).
I am glad I read the book. It changed me. As you might have guessed, I am skeptical and don't consider myself an environmentalist at all. I am also neither a lawyer nor a political operator. That said, I wonder where I have been hiding because I had not heard anything about this case at all -- and I wonder why. I guess I am in a silo.
That's the good thing about the book: I believe it'll be able to speak outside of and across the silos and echo chambers that tend to only preach to the choir.
Paul Barrett did the same thing with his book Glock: he wrote a book that transcended the pro- and anti-gun conversation.
The Law of the Jungle has surely been able to transcend both the pro- and anti-environmentalists and also the pro- and anti-capitalists, too.
I haven't read a book that has changed me as much since reading Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum.
July 27, 2014
I read a galley copy that I received from the author, Paul Barrett, a couple months ago when I was up visiting New York City. I met Paul when he came out with his previous book, Glock. Since I know firearms, Glocks, forums, blogs, and social media, I helped show and introduce him around. I'm helping him again. And, as part of that, I read _Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett
Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win_.
I know a lot less about what happened in Ecuador that I do about plastic pistols. That said, that helped since the non fiction book was a cliff hanger for me. I didn't ruin it by jumping on Wikipedia or reading Paul's reporting about the Cofán Indians v. Texaco/Chevron or spoiling it by looking at Wikipedia, so the subject was new to me.
One thing I notices about this book that was very much like _Glock_ was how balanced the reporting is. This book is going to piss off both the environmentalists as well as the free market capitalists as well. The sign of good reporting is that both sides feel slighted.
While this book is primarily an exploration of the cult of personality known as Steven Donziger, the larger-than-life, Harvard-educated, class-action lawyer who took an unwinnable David and Goliath case between the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio oil field case (the indigenous Cofán people) against Texaco (now part of Chevron).
Like any David v Goliath case, I thought I would be rooting for Donziger and his lieutenant Pablo Fajardo; however, both sides played for their lives and Steven Donziger was maybe a little too open and honest about what lengths he was willing to take to win the lawsuit.
At the end of the day, there were two heroes: Pablo Fajardo and the Rule of Law.
I also highly recommend watching the movie _Crude_ -- it's a documentary commissioned by Donziger and directed by Joe Berlinger -- it's amazing to put faces to names and voices to text after you've explored such a maddening international circus.
Hell, there's even a cameo by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, as Steven Donziger brings world attention to one of the worst oil spill/environmental disaster, the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador.
I must admit, it took me a while to read the book. The book's beautifully written and is easy to read. Like I said before, it's balanced, journalistic, and even brings the author into the narrative (it goes from strikingly objective to rather personal); however, it still was a challenging read because I am neither a lawyer nor an environmentalist.
That said, it's amazing to see how the legal, judicial, environmental, and capitalist systems work, under the hood and when nobody should look (note: thing twice about commissioning an all-access documentary film crew if you have impulse control and tend to want to blurt morally ambiguous advice and offer no-holds-barred strategy that may well be how things are done in Quito but don't come across very well in US Courts -- just don't do it!).
I am glad I read the book. It changed me. As you might have guessed, I am skeptical and don't consider myself an environmentalist at all. I am also neither a lawyer nor a political operator. That said, I wonder where I have been hiding because I had not heard anything about this case at all -- and I wonder why. I guess I am in a silo.
That's the good thing about the book: I believe it'll be able to speak outside of and across the silos and echo chambers that tend to only preach to the choir.
Paul Barrett did the same thing with his book Glock: he wrote a book that transcended the pro- and anti-gun conversation.
The Law of the Jungle has surely been able to transcend both the pro- and anti-environmentalists and also the pro- and anti-capitalists, too.
I haven't read a book that has changed me as much since reading Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum.
Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win_.
I know a lot less about what happened in Ecuador that I do about plastic pistols. That said, that helped since the non fiction book was a cliff hanger for me. I didn't ruin it by jumping on Wikipedia or reading Paul's reporting about the Cofán Indians v. Texaco/Chevron or spoiling it by looking at Wikipedia, so the subject was new to me.
One thing I notices about this book that was very much like _Glock_ was how balanced the reporting is. This book is going to piss off both the environmentalists as well as the free market capitalists as well. The sign of good reporting is that both sides feel slighted.
While this book is primarily an exploration of the cult of personality known as Steven Donziger, the larger-than-life, Harvard-educated, class-action lawyer who took an unwinnable David and Goliath case between the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio oil field case (the indigenous Cofán people) against Texaco (now part of Chevron).
Like any David v Goliath case, I thought I would be rooting for Donziger and his lieutenant Pablo Fajardo; however, both sides played for their lives and Steven Donziger was maybe a little too open and honest about what lengths he was willing to take to win the lawsuit.
At the end of the day, there were two heroes: Pablo Fajardo and the Rule of Law.
I also highly recommend watching the movie _Crude_ -- it's a documentary commissioned by Donziger and directed by Joe Berlinger -- it's amazing to put faces to names and voices to text after you've explored such a maddening international circus.
Hell, there's even a cameo by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, as Steven Donziger brings world attention to one of the worst oil spill/environmental disaster, the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador.
I must admit, it took me a while to read the book. The book's beautifully written and is easy to read. Like I said before, it's balanced, journalistic, and even brings the author into the narrative (it goes from strikingly objective to rather personal); however, it still was a challenging read because I am neither a lawyer nor an environmentalist.
That said, it's amazing to see how the legal, judicial, environmental, and capitalist systems work, under the hood and when nobody should look (note: thing twice about commissioning an all-access documentary film crew if you have impulse control and tend to want to blurt morally ambiguous advice and offer no-holds-barred strategy that may well be how things are done in Quito but don't come across very well in US Courts -- just don't do it!).
I am glad I read the book. It changed me. As you might have guessed, I am skeptical and don't consider myself an environmentalist at all. I am also neither a lawyer nor a political operator. That said, I wonder where I have been hiding because I had not heard anything about this case at all -- and I wonder why. I guess I am in a silo.
That's the good thing about the book: I believe it'll be able to speak outside of and across the silos and echo chambers that tend to only preach to the choir.
Paul Barrett did the same thing with his book Glock: he wrote a book that transcended the pro- and anti-gun conversation.
The Law of the Jungle has surely been able to transcend both the pro- and anti-environmentalists and also the pro- and anti-capitalists, too.
I haven't read a book that has changed me as much since reading Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum.
Read
February 3, 2015I picked up “Law of the Jungle” because I read a fascinating New Yorker article several years ago about the lawsuit that is its subject: a class action suit against Chevron brought by a US attorney (Steve Donziger) that won a $19 billion award on behalf of Amazonian tribespeople for environmental damage from Chevron’s operations in the Ecuadorean rain forest. It is a very complicated tale, both factually and morally. The environmental impacts on the rain forest and the people who lived there were real, although the blame is certainly shared by the Ecuadorean government and state-owned oil company (who Donziger leaves out of his suit in order to create a more compelling "evil gringo corporation trampling local people" narrative). Donziger originally started the suit in order to seek environmental justice, but he went way off the rails over the course of two decades of litigation – blackmailing judges, conspiring to have the court appoint a supposedly neutral expert to make definitive assessment of the scientific aspects of the case who was in fact operating under the guidance of Donziger’s team, paying a retired judge to ghostwrite the court’s final verdict (and possibly bribe the presiding judge), and on and on, a litany of fraud and malfeasance. Donziger saw himself as David against a corporate Goliath, and came to believe that the ends justified the means in getting a judgment against Chevron – that right was on his side so “guerilla” tactics were acceptable and even required. The chance for a massive payment as part of huge award likely also crept into his thinking and conduct (it certainly did for many who colluded with him in his misconduct). Chevron is not saintly either – apart from the original environmental problems that sparked the lawsuit, the company employs all the unsavory (but legal) tactics that a deep-pocketed corporation has to thwart people like Donziger – armies of lawyers, mountains of paper, masses of obfuscatory technicalities, and delaying tactics to sustain a war of attrition that a less well-funded plaintiff will not be able to endure. All of the things that make our legal system tilted towards the wealthy, in other words (even though here the case was being adjudicated in Ecuador). There really are no heroes in this story, although Donziger's malfeasance is of a different quality altogether.
Donziger is relentless and persuasive, and he comes very close to prevailing over a vastly better-resourced opponent, in part on the basis of his PR savvy and courting of celebrities. The thing that ultimately brings Donziger down is his own ego and messiah complex – amazingly, he agrees to have a documentary made about the lawsuit by a well-regarded American filmmaker, and Donziger becomes so comfortable being filmed that he begins to conduct his illicit activities with cameras rolling. When the documentary comes out, though it is very flattering of Danziger and his case, the Chevron attorneys notice a discrepancy between the Netflix version and the DVD version which (to make a long story short) leads them to subpoena all the outtakes, containing lots of damning footage. Donziger’s case basically unravels from there – while he wins the case in Ecuador, Chevron wins a RICO suit against him in New York (with a very sympathetic judge) that means that Donziger and his clients will never be able to collect against the company.
It is a dramatic story, well-told by Paul Barrett, and contains a lot to think about on a range of subjects - the wisdom of class action lawsuits, corporations' responsibilities in locales that don't have sophisticated regulatory infrastructure (Chevron argues pretty convincingly that they did what they were required to do by Ecuadorean law - the question is whether that is enough), and whether an underdog is justified in resorting to unconventional tactics.
Donziger is relentless and persuasive, and he comes very close to prevailing over a vastly better-resourced opponent, in part on the basis of his PR savvy and courting of celebrities. The thing that ultimately brings Donziger down is his own ego and messiah complex – amazingly, he agrees to have a documentary made about the lawsuit by a well-regarded American filmmaker, and Donziger becomes so comfortable being filmed that he begins to conduct his illicit activities with cameras rolling. When the documentary comes out, though it is very flattering of Danziger and his case, the Chevron attorneys notice a discrepancy between the Netflix version and the DVD version which (to make a long story short) leads them to subpoena all the outtakes, containing lots of damning footage. Donziger’s case basically unravels from there – while he wins the case in Ecuador, Chevron wins a RICO suit against him in New York (with a very sympathetic judge) that means that Donziger and his clients will never be able to collect against the company.
It is a dramatic story, well-told by Paul Barrett, and contains a lot to think about on a range of subjects - the wisdom of class action lawsuits, corporations' responsibilities in locales that don't have sophisticated regulatory infrastructure (Chevron argues pretty convincingly that they did what they were required to do by Ecuadorean law - the question is whether that is enough), and whether an underdog is justified in resorting to unconventional tactics.
September 24, 2014
BOOK REVIEW: 'Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win'
REVIEWED BY DAVID M. KINCHEN
In his conclusion to "Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win" (Crown Publishers, 304 pages, notes, index, $26.00) Paul M. Barrett writes that "this is a tale with no shortage of knaves and villains."
That might be the understatement of the decade in a book detailing the legal maneuvers that American lawyer Steven R. Donziger and other lawyers in Ecuador used to get monetary justice and environmental remediation for the mostly indigenous people of the oil fields of eastern Ecuador. For his efforts, Donziger faced RICO charges in a New York City federal court. The court ruled against Donziger and that ruling by Judge Lewis Kaplan is currently being appealed.
I said in my review of Barrett's previous book "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun" that the characters in the book could have been created by the late, great novelist Elmore "Dutch" Leonard. The characters in "Law of the Jungle" are worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film -- and include celebrities like rock musician Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, documentary filmmaker Joseph Berlinger and a rogue's gallery of corporate types from Chevron and their lawyers.
Almost lost in the legal battle were the indigenous peoples and poor farmers of the South American country's Amazon rainforest, where Texaco -- later acquired by by oil megagiant Chevron had been granted permission to drill for oil. Texaco had been invited by the country to drill for oil in the Amazon region and -- along with Ecuador's national oil company -- committed ecological damage that resulted in polluted drinking water and allegedly contributed to cancers and other medical problems to the natives.
The central figure of the novel is Steven R. Donziger, born in 1961 and along with Barack Obama, his contemporary, a member of the Harvard Law School class of 1991. The six-foot-four-inch Donziger played basketball with the future community organizer, Illinois senator and two-term president.
Florida native Donziger, a self-style social activist, signed on to a class action lawsuit against Texaco-Chevron, the third largest corporation in the U.S.
The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron’s lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules. Donziger, a larger-than-life, loud-mouthed showman, proved himself a master orchestrator of the media, Hollywood, and public opinion.
Donziger cajoled and coerced Ecuadorian judges on the theory that his noble ends justified any means of persuasion. And in the end, he won an unlikely victory, a $19 billion judgment against Chevon--the biggest environmental damages award in history. But the company refused to surrender or compromise, instead targeting Donziger personally, and its counter-attack revealed damning evidence of his politicking and manipulation of evidence. Suddenly the verdict, and decades of Donziger’s single-minded pursuit of the case, began to unravel.
Like Barrett's previous nonfiction books, "Law of the Jungle" reads like a novel, but it's written by a master journalist who is also a law school graduate. I recommend it without reservation.
REVIEWED BY DAVID M. KINCHEN
In his conclusion to "Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win" (Crown Publishers, 304 pages, notes, index, $26.00) Paul M. Barrett writes that "this is a tale with no shortage of knaves and villains."
That might be the understatement of the decade in a book detailing the legal maneuvers that American lawyer Steven R. Donziger and other lawyers in Ecuador used to get monetary justice and environmental remediation for the mostly indigenous people of the oil fields of eastern Ecuador. For his efforts, Donziger faced RICO charges in a New York City federal court. The court ruled against Donziger and that ruling by Judge Lewis Kaplan is currently being appealed.
I said in my review of Barrett's previous book "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun" that the characters in the book could have been created by the late, great novelist Elmore "Dutch" Leonard. The characters in "Law of the Jungle" are worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film -- and include celebrities like rock musician Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, documentary filmmaker Joseph Berlinger and a rogue's gallery of corporate types from Chevron and their lawyers.
Almost lost in the legal battle were the indigenous peoples and poor farmers of the South American country's Amazon rainforest, where Texaco -- later acquired by by oil megagiant Chevron had been granted permission to drill for oil. Texaco had been invited by the country to drill for oil in the Amazon region and -- along with Ecuador's national oil company -- committed ecological damage that resulted in polluted drinking water and allegedly contributed to cancers and other medical problems to the natives.
The central figure of the novel is Steven R. Donziger, born in 1961 and along with Barack Obama, his contemporary, a member of the Harvard Law School class of 1991. The six-foot-four-inch Donziger played basketball with the future community organizer, Illinois senator and two-term president.
Florida native Donziger, a self-style social activist, signed on to a class action lawsuit against Texaco-Chevron, the third largest corporation in the U.S.
The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron’s lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules. Donziger, a larger-than-life, loud-mouthed showman, proved himself a master orchestrator of the media, Hollywood, and public opinion.
Donziger cajoled and coerced Ecuadorian judges on the theory that his noble ends justified any means of persuasion. And in the end, he won an unlikely victory, a $19 billion judgment against Chevon--the biggest environmental damages award in history. But the company refused to surrender or compromise, instead targeting Donziger personally, and its counter-attack revealed damning evidence of his politicking and manipulation of evidence. Suddenly the verdict, and decades of Donziger’s single-minded pursuit of the case, began to unravel.
Like Barrett's previous nonfiction books, "Law of the Jungle" reads like a novel, but it's written by a master journalist who is also a law school graduate. I recommend it without reservation.
December 12, 2015
I received this book as a Goodreads First Reads award. It proved to be a fascinating, and at times repulsive, account of a class action suit to provide remuneration to the Ecuadorian peasants living in and around the site of Texaco/Chevron's oil drilling operation in their country.
Start with a young, untested lawyer with a Harvard degree and a yen for social activism who is introduced to the ecological nightmare caused by Texaco's quest for oil in the rain forests of Ecuador. Add a merger that brings Texaco under the umbrella of Chevron, the 3rd largest corporation in America. Include an Ecuadorian government that wants to profit from the natural resources of their country but has no interest in protecting the population from the resulting pollution and waste created. An unprecedented recipe for ecological disaster.
For two decades, Steven Donziger battles Chevron for damages, first in the United States, then in the constantly fluctuating courts of Ecuador. As the lawsuit drags on, Donziger becomes less worried about justice and more focused on his own agenda. Laws are broken on all sides and morality is a commodity to be bought and sold. A judgement is won, but no one will ever see a dime of it, least of all the peasants this legal war was supposed to benefit.
This is not a David and Goliath story. Yes, Chevron uses its considerable corporate resources and might to beat down the suit, using every dirty trick in their vast arsenal. But Donziger and his cohorts are just as guilty of legal malfeasance, be it bribing judges and officials to falsifying testimony by their "expert" witnesses. And let's not forget Ecuador itself, a country full of officials willing to back the highest bidder while leaving their own people to suffer the consequences of careless drilling practices and safety violations.
A fascinating and disheartening foray into the flawed legal system that rewards chicanery and bribery.
Start with a young, untested lawyer with a Harvard degree and a yen for social activism who is introduced to the ecological nightmare caused by Texaco's quest for oil in the rain forests of Ecuador. Add a merger that brings Texaco under the umbrella of Chevron, the 3rd largest corporation in America. Include an Ecuadorian government that wants to profit from the natural resources of their country but has no interest in protecting the population from the resulting pollution and waste created. An unprecedented recipe for ecological disaster.
For two decades, Steven Donziger battles Chevron for damages, first in the United States, then in the constantly fluctuating courts of Ecuador. As the lawsuit drags on, Donziger becomes less worried about justice and more focused on his own agenda. Laws are broken on all sides and morality is a commodity to be bought and sold. A judgement is won, but no one will ever see a dime of it, least of all the peasants this legal war was supposed to benefit.
This is not a David and Goliath story. Yes, Chevron uses its considerable corporate resources and might to beat down the suit, using every dirty trick in their vast arsenal. But Donziger and his cohorts are just as guilty of legal malfeasance, be it bribing judges and officials to falsifying testimony by their "expert" witnesses. And let's not forget Ecuador itself, a country full of officials willing to back the highest bidder while leaving their own people to suffer the consequences of careless drilling practices and safety violations.
A fascinating and disheartening foray into the flawed legal system that rewards chicanery and bribery.
November 29, 2015
This is a great journalistic take on a controversial legal battle: the book added a whole lot of nuance to my thinking about US corporations operating in developing countries.
Paul Barrett chronicles the lawsuit between Ecuadorian plaintiffs, represented by an American lawyer, against Texaco (then Chevron, which purchased it), over the damaged rainforests in Ecuador. There are several law-nerd things that I loved** but even if you don’t care about those, it’s still a great read because it delves into the moral ambiguity surrounding American companies operating abroad.
Yes, there’s ambiguity. While the indigenous and poor Ecuadorians are the victims, one would be hard pressed to identify the perpetrator: both their government and Texaco sold them out; unsurprisingly, it’s easier to blame the huge multinational (especially in light of Ecuador’s sovereign immunity law).
Barrett compares deforestation, pollution, etc., in areas that Ecuador retained control over (and areas it took responsibility for cleaning up) with their Texaco-controlled counterparts: Texaco emerges victorious (see especially pgs. 22 and 164); socialism is far from a panacea for the environment, at least with a corrupt and fairly incompetent government at the helm. Add to that the fact of Texaco paying 90% of its profits from its operations there to the Ecuadorian government in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and it starts to look less like Texaco took advantage of an unwitting partner, and more like a conspiracy among two big organizations to make money from oil that trampled on little people and the environment.
**A pivotal granting of an FNC motion; the plaintiff’s lawyer and Obama playing basketball against each other at Harvard Law School; Gibson Dunn invoking civil RICO statute to go after the plaintiff’s lawyer in the US because of footage in a documentary that was filmed at the request of the lawyer and slightly different footage in the version released on Netflix.
Paul Barrett chronicles the lawsuit between Ecuadorian plaintiffs, represented by an American lawyer, against Texaco (then Chevron, which purchased it), over the damaged rainforests in Ecuador. There are several law-nerd things that I loved** but even if you don’t care about those, it’s still a great read because it delves into the moral ambiguity surrounding American companies operating abroad.
Yes, there’s ambiguity. While the indigenous and poor Ecuadorians are the victims, one would be hard pressed to identify the perpetrator: both their government and Texaco sold them out; unsurprisingly, it’s easier to blame the huge multinational (especially in light of Ecuador’s sovereign immunity law).
Barrett compares deforestation, pollution, etc., in areas that Ecuador retained control over (and areas it took responsibility for cleaning up) with their Texaco-controlled counterparts: Texaco emerges victorious (see especially pgs. 22 and 164); socialism is far from a panacea for the environment, at least with a corrupt and fairly incompetent government at the helm. Add to that the fact of Texaco paying 90% of its profits from its operations there to the Ecuadorian government in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and it starts to look less like Texaco took advantage of an unwitting partner, and more like a conspiracy among two big organizations to make money from oil that trampled on little people and the environment.
**A pivotal granting of an FNC motion; the plaintiff’s lawyer and Obama playing basketball against each other at Harvard Law School; Gibson Dunn invoking civil RICO statute to go after the plaintiff’s lawyer in the US because of footage in a documentary that was filmed at the request of the lawyer and slightly different footage in the version released on Netflix.
December 28, 2015
This is an interesting story, but a hard one to tell. At times “Law of the Jungle” reads like a novel (but nonfiction), other times like a radio story, but other times it feels a little disjointed. The author clearly did his research, and while he knows the story inside and out, I had a hard time putting the stand-alone sentences into order. At times, too, I had to wonder about the author’s potential bias. He paints the big oil companies like “bad guys,” which in many ways they could be, but he doesn’t really try to tell their side objectively. The book just seems to show both oil companies and lawyers at their worst. Really, I’m more interested in environmental issues, and human rights in general, than lawyers showing off.
When Texaco, later absorbed by Chevron, started taking oil from Ecuador, the whole area became polluted and the people living there suffered horrible health problems. I wish the author had explained the drilling process more, and how so much oil could leak all over the place. It seems like a lot of waste, unless it was only that, a waste product, and they didn’t do a good job containing it. But couldn’t they have done a cleaner job? Then, yes, it is an expensive cleanup, including medical costs, but, isn’t there an amount that would have justly covered this? The lawyers, and everyone else involved, shouldn’t think about the money they can make off the tragedy of exploitation, but in making up to these people and their land some of what they have lost, because some of that cannot even be recovered. (Can you tell I’m not a lawyer?) I found the one-word chapter titles that do little to help guide the reader, and I just couldn’t get through this one. That happens sometimes.
Note: I received a free copy of this title through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review. For more reviews, follow my blog at http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/
When Texaco, later absorbed by Chevron, started taking oil from Ecuador, the whole area became polluted and the people living there suffered horrible health problems. I wish the author had explained the drilling process more, and how so much oil could leak all over the place. It seems like a lot of waste, unless it was only that, a waste product, and they didn’t do a good job containing it. But couldn’t they have done a cleaner job? Then, yes, it is an expensive cleanup, including medical costs, but, isn’t there an amount that would have justly covered this? The lawyers, and everyone else involved, shouldn’t think about the money they can make off the tragedy of exploitation, but in making up to these people and their land some of what they have lost, because some of that cannot even be recovered. (Can you tell I’m not a lawyer?) I found the one-word chapter titles that do little to help guide the reader, and I just couldn’t get through this one. That happens sometimes.
Note: I received a free copy of this title through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review. For more reviews, follow my blog at http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/
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