The 20th anniversary of the biggest, deadliest oil spill in our nation's history is coming up next month. It will no doubt be a somber occasion. But for those who were most affected, remembering what came before and after the Exxon Valdez oil spill may be more painful than the anniversary of the disaster itself.

"You won't have a problem. I don't care if you believe that or not. That's the truth. You have had some good luck and you don't realize it. You have Exxon and we do business straight. We will consider whatever it takes to keep you whole. Now that's - you have my word on that," Exxon President Dan Cornett told a crowd of Cordovans gathered in concern after the disaster (watch a video excerpt of that meeting here).

The opposite turned out to be the case; in reality it was more of a fleecing in the disguise of disaster. For the past two decades, Exxon has dragged its corporate feet in court while Alaskans have struggled to cope with the after effects of the spill. Communities such as Cordova still report cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome, along with continuing increases in divorce, bankruptcy, and suicide rates.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/635

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/638

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/640

Sure John...

But the lawyers made far more money than the people of Alaska did, didn't they?...

That's a very important factor in the equation and the "lawyers" would advise the client "Ex-con" not to pay the bill, and not to admit liability. Never.

Paying the bill would bring a black mark against the company (acceptance of negligence) which in 99.9 per cent of litigation of companies in the world is always refuted, despite evidence to the contrary.

It's part of the strategy of denial for profit and non-blemished record and we all know how hard it was to get James Hardie to the negotiating table, even under Australian law. James Hardie folded its tables and chairs in this country and move all its furniture to the Netherlands to avoid the law suit.

In many cases, especially in business litigation, the law can be interpreted to mean something that was not intended originally (laws written by lawyers who know the system anyway) — but the meaning of every singular word in a specific paragraph or entire sections of the law can be semantically dissected with more delicate care by lawyers, than expert surgeons perform brain surgery. This process takes months, years, and in all cases, the briefs will bring as many documents and precedent cases to the fore, by the truck load... The lot designed to clog up the system in brilliant display of cockahoop. But should the lawyer not do this, then the firm employing them can claim the lawyers are negligent since they might have left a pebble unturned in one corner of the universe...

One should remember the case of "Murdoch" versus the "Rabbitohs"...

If I recall correctly, through various means, Murdoch's "entities" made sure the "Rabbitohs" would be excluded from the National Rugby League competition, as well as a few other clubs. There were "mean tests" set up "agreed by all participant" to cull the numbers of clubs from 22 or more (?) down to 14, when the Super league and the National league were to be merged (The Super League had been set up by News Limited [Murdoch] to by-pass anti-siphoning laws that prevented News to own exclusive rights to the National games for its pay TV network, thus he set up a "private" parallel comp, using some of the existing clubs who defected and creating a few new clubs. Thus it was complicated enough, but in the end both comps were "bleeding to death"... News losses in the Super-League were about $A700 millions...

Both comps would thus cull the same number of clubs to be "fair" using sets of criteria... Considering that the National League had been in operation for more than 90 years and the News limited outfit was about two years old, there was some tears and a lot of rubbish flying...

One of the criteria was finances. The "Rabbitohs" were broke. They had been broke for nearly all of these 90 or so years in existence. The club was a "non-profit" organisation, thus at every end of seasons, there was no money in the kitty, but the club was always solvent by a couple of bucks. Thus by end of criteria judgement, the "Rabbits" were unceremoniously thrown out, with North and a few others who also had been "comp founding clubs" in 1908.

So the "Rabbitohs" went on to fight "Murdoch" in the courts... There was massive public outrage which in the short term was going to hurt News (Murdoch)'s interests (people stopped buying Murdoch's papers). There was even some street demonstrations: The first one had about 40,000 people walking the streets of Sydney towards Town Hall, the second had 80,000 people in the streets! Massive, unheard off behaviour to protect a small sporting club... But it did represent the people versus big business...

The club was defeated in the first court case... But it appealed!!!

It won the second court case!!!! By then, the public outrage was such that in a magnanimous gesture, News (Murdoch) let the club back in the competition "forever".

(One must add here that some of the clubs that had cut the mustard to stay financially in the comp (Canterbury, Cronulla, etc) owed their existence to loans and grants coming directly from News limited without which they would have been millions in the red.)

But in the end, the victory for the people was good.

BUT...

But in order to prove that News never intended to be a bad "citizen", News took the court case further, a court case that would have no influence on whether the "Rabbitohs" would stay or not. They would stay no matter what... Thus News limited "won" the last court case, a court case that few people know about, but it allowed News Limited to "have a clean record"...

Smile, you're on candid camera...