Raccoon Trials

The Raccoon Trials were a series of lawsuits between the Umbrella Corporation and the United States Federal Government relating to the 1998 Raccoon City Tragedy.

Background
The US Military was one of Umbrella's bioweapons customers. In September 1998, Dr. William Birkin attempted to sell the G-virus to them. Likely fearing a loss of business from an acquisition of such a weapon, Umbrella assassinated Birkin. Unfortunately, he held a sample of the virus in his posession, which he injected himself with. The subsequent transformation inadvertantly led to t-virus samples flooding into the sewers, where they were carried by rats into the water supply.

After the outbreak made itself known, Umbrella appealed to Congress for them to delay "Mission Code XX", a biohazard contingency. In the meantime Umbrella sent in their Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service under the guise of being a paramilitary force sent in to protect the uninfected citizens who would have perished had Umbrella not delayed the mission. On September 29, Umbrella's paramilitary forces fell under the command of former Soviet Colonel Sergei Vladimir; noticing that the United States Army Special Forces had been sent into Incineration Disposal Plant P-12A to gather valuable Umbrella assets, a force of T-103s was sent into the city to crush them.

On the night of September 30/October 1, Congress refused to delay the plan any further, and a prototype missile was fired at the city at dawn, eradicating it.

With the city destroyed, Congress filed a decree indefinetly-suspending business to Umbrella USA, Inc. Consequently, Umbrella filed a lawsuit against the government in protest.

The case
In protest over the government's decisison, Umbrella CEO Ozwell E. Spencer hired a top-legal team. His purpose was to revoke Congress' decision by arguing that the bombing of Raccoon City took effect so that they could cover up their dealings with the company. Consequently, all witness testimonies in favour of Congress were denounced by the company as being fabricated or altered to absolve them of responsibility; Congress argued likewise over Umbrella's testimonies, which were denounced as entirely-fabricated.

While Spencer's "conspiracy theory" was a powerful tool early in the several-year trial, it slowly lost its strength as the US government continued to put forward more evidence against the company. The trial ended after Albert Wesker handed over the U.M.F.-013's data some time after the Caucasus outbreak of February 2003.Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles credits.

The decision
With Umbrella's own writings taken into account, they were found guilty on all charges relating to the events, with the US Federal Government establishing itself as entirely-innocent. Spencer's legal team made plans to appeal the decision, arguing that the evidence was not admissible in court (meaning that they could not be proved as the writers). Spencer subsequently vanished after the trial's end, when his involvement in the incident was made apparent. The FBI began working with the Russian Ministry of the Interior in the global manhunt.