Roger Parloff’s legal analysis in Fortune (Evidence of fraud mounts in Ecuadorian suit against Chevron, September 13) is one-sided and fails to adequately capture the enormous financial risk faced by Chevron in Ecuador…Parloff’s theory…is that ex parte contacts with or party submissions to a court-appointed expert are improper and that therefore the Ecuador damages assessment of $27 billion…is somehow invalid. This is incorrect as a matter of fact and law…Parloff failed to fully explain that both parties before the Ecuador court have cooperated with court-appointed experts throughout the case… The manufactured controversy over the [court-appointed expert’s] report is a sideshow designed by Chevron to fog up the issue of its own enormous liability in the face of questions from several of its large institutional shareholders and analysts who cover the oil industry.