It will take years of litigation to sort out responsibility for the multibillion-dollar charge.
Critics of auctions argue that they compromise a lead plaintiff's ability to direct the course of litigation, because the court assumes responsibility for choosing lawyers.
Combine this with our inability to take responsibility for our own failures and we have a litigation cocktail which discourages hiring.
The 2011, an Ecuadorian court found that the contract that waived Texaco's responsibility for the cleanup didn't protect the company from litigation, as it was signed with Petroecuador, not the government itself.
"The judge's ruling means that the litigation can finally get under way, and that the state can no longer avoid the responsibility for its wrongdoing".
Shell denied that it bore any responsibility for Mr. Saro-Wiwa's death, but said it wanted to end the litigation and move on.
"From the outset of this litigation, we made it clear to Bayer that the company needed to step up and take responsibility for damaging American rice farmers with its unapproved rice seeds," Adam Levitt, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement Friday.
Last December, James M. Mahoney, a vice president at the New York Fed who said he had principal responsibility for the Maiden Lane II transaction, testified that the New York Fed intended to receive litigation claims associated with the troubled mortgage securities.
Moreover, many of the people who ran agencies for Mr. Giuliani or who handled responsibility for the health issues after he left office would not comment, citing the pending litigation.
Responsibility for the disaster — which BP has estimated could ultimately cost $40 billion for cleanup, claims and penalties — is a subject of intense litigation and continuing government investigations.
"Take responsibility for yourself".
