Check out this amazing and terrifying story in The Intercept about a lawyer whose life is being systematically destroyed by a large corporation.
“Chevron has hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him. As a result, Donziger has been disbarred and his bank accounts have been frozen. He now has a lien on his apartment, faces exorbitant fines, and has been prohibited from earning money. As of August, a court has seized his passport and put him on house arrest. Chevron, which has a market capitalization of $228 billion, has the funds to continue targeting Donziger for as long as it chooses.”
What did he do to piss them off? He helped tens of thousand of Ecuadorian farmers to successfully sue Chevron over contamination of their lands. They were fined $18 billion – and then refused to pay up.
It’s a stark warning about what can happen if you try to take down a corporation by yourself.
Disclaimer: I’m not saying these people are psychopaths. But this is the kind of behaviour we should expect from psychopaths and psychopathic organisational cultures.