Grossly undercharged, if you ask me.

I am in complete agreement, Charles. I can only add that Donziger’s “sheer stupidity” is born of arrogance and megalomania.

Fair point! Perhaps we would agree that the January 6 people were mostly undercharged. On the other hand, we don’t know yet what the story of the January 6 prosecutions will look like overall.

James, there is an interesting paper from several years back by Chris Whytock and Cassandra Burke on the question, and you might check out this post. I think the reason estoppel couldn’t really carry the day was that in its undertaking to the US court, which led to the forum non conveniens dismissal, Chevron agreed to litigate in Ecuador but it expressly reserved its right to challenge recognition on the grounds set out in New York law, which include fraud, etc. I still think there was a good argument in principle that as long as the foreign judiciary overall was adequate, fraud in the first-instance proceedings shouldn’t be enough, but the US statutes aren’t really drafted that way. My big-picture view was that when Chevron sought to have the case sent to Ecuador, it figured it would get a corrupt, right-wing court, but in the interim, there was a change in government, and it got a corrupt, left-wing court.

Thank you, Charles, for the comment. I recall a few years ago unhappiness among some in the human rights community about Donziger brining their work into disrepute. I don’t know what has happened since then.

Any authority for that particular estoppel application? Make sense to me and I’d like to read more.