The Bhopal disaster litigation presented the anomaly of Indian plaintiffs seeking to maintain their lawsuit in the United States on the basis of the inadequacy of the Indian legal system, while a U.S. company sought to have the case heard in India. Union Carbide was ultimately successful in having the U.S. case dismissed in favor of litigation in India. Although the subsequent $470 million settlement sounds very large, the ultimate breakdown was approximately $600 for each injured person and $3,000 for each fatality. Union Carbide's legal strategy of forcing the litigation to proceed in India where it could be settled for much less than a U.S. jury may have awarded was very successful.

But was it ethical?