One of the ways in which corporations can evade the democratic process in part, is by playing different groups against one another, wheher that's cities, states, or nations.
For example, some companies, to break the power of labor organizing (its only real source of any leverage), build duplicate manufacturing facilities in various parts of the world, so that it can tell unions, 'you want to make any demands we don't like and threaten to strike? We can easily shut your plant down and moce elsewhere, so forget it.'
The phrase 'race to the bottom' is used for situations like this where competition forces 'bad results' that the rules of the game would otherwise not allow. Some of the biggest 'sellouts' to interest like sports teams or factories in the US happen when the owners make cities and states big against one another giving them tax breaks, spending tax dollars to build special roads for them, freedom from regulations against pollution or other public-demanded protections, and other concessions. It doesn't sound all that terrible on the surface, but the results are often pretty undesirable, crippling communities' ability to have the standards they want under an economic blackmail. With things like a sports team, at least any recipient has to be willing to take the final deal, but in undermining labor, the nations are left with little choice. If labor could organize on a global level to prevent this, it would work, but it's very difficult to have workers in Asia and Latin America, for example, organized together.
In the Supreme Court case on limiting punitive damages, one of the briefs filed by business explicitly argued that the court should consider that allowing higher punitive damages can harm the US's business interests as companies locate in places who give the public less legal rights. It was using the same sort of economic blackmail to argue, whatever the democratic process has created in the law, you had better do things our way, or you will pay financially, so rule this way regardless of the law, as you interpret it. Few of us probably think the US Supreme Court should be ruling based on that issue, reducing plaintiffs' rights not because of the law, but because of the effects the businesses say happen; that's the role of Congress to take into account. This is when the issue of justices like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, corporatist lawyers, becomes key, as they are primed to represent the corporate interests usually, and were largely appointed as a reward to the donors who want to take over the court on these issues.
Surprisingly, Scalia and Thomas are reportedly not on the side of the corporatists on this; they are two of the three in the current 4-3 split in favor of limiting punitive damages, so Alito and Roberts will either confirm or overturn that one-vote majority. I have a guess which is more likely.
I think it's a bad thing that there's the Federalist Society out there creating a biased ideology and infrastructure for steering our legal system in a certain unfortunate direction. It's their right, but that makes it in our interest to thwart them.
Exxon's behavior in all this has been contemptible - Greg Palast's first book has a good insider story on the situation, as he lived with the natives affected for a while, and found that Exxon has done a lot more wrong than the public is much aware of. I'm inclined to agree with dmcowen on revoking their charter.
And it's nice to see there's an issue whooz and I are on the same side of.
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