Extract from a Joe McGinniss email to a PR officer for one of the organizations supporting the plaintiffs in the Wiwa v Shell case, in which Joe (right) criticised the $15.5 million settlement:
But I can’t help sensing that after finally reaching the point where you were about to show the world the evidence of Shell’s maleficence and perfidy you turned back from the brink, took a token payment, and let them off the hook. There may have been many sound reasons for doing so. Obviously, on balance, you collectively agreed that settlement was preferable to the trial you’d sought for thirteen years. But it was like you had the stake in your hand, and then instead of driving it into their foul and noxious heart you set it down, took their chump change, and walked away, leaving them able to scurry off spouting claims of having been “humanitarian.”