In March, Chevron won an unusual racketeering verdict in federal court in New York that thrilled many members of the corporate defense bar. The company obtained a ruling that discredited an earlier multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. Corporate advocates praised the New York ruling as a model of how to combat allegedly fraudulent class actions. The company sued Steven Donziger, a New York plaintiffs' attorney, in federal court in New York under the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act. After a six-week trial in late 2013, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in March of this year that Donziger's legal-and-media campaign against Chevron had indeed evolved into a shakedown featuring fabricated scientific evidence, forged documents, coercion, and bribery. In its appeal, Chevron argued that the Ecuadorian appellate judges could not have truly reconsidered the evidence from scratch, because all of the evidence was so thoroughly permeated by deceit.