In federal court in New York today, Chevron deployed Theodore Olson, a former US solicitor general and noted Supreme Court advocate, to convince a three-judge panel to clear the way for a civil racketeering suit the oil company wants to start next month against plaintiffs' attorney and environmental activist Steven Donziger. Olson, who at the moment is also representing BP in that energy giant's liability battle in New Orleans over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, seemed to get the job done for Chevron. Today's skirmishing before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit appeared to focus on the most abstruse of legal doctrines, ranging from mandamus to collateral estoppel. But the real question hovering above the packed courtroom on Foley Square was the future of a $19 billion oil-pollution verdict imposed on Chevron by a provincial trial court in the Ecuadorian rainforest in February 2011.