Chevron: Release The Secret Evidence That Proves Your Guilt In Ecuador

Reposted from Karen Hinton on the The Huffington Post

In the wake of a controversial U.S. court ruling that a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron is fraudulent, the oil giant has been touting loudly its innocence of any environmental crimes in the South American country.

Chevron's lawyers even successfully pressured some CBS News corporate suits to yank a damning 60 Minutes piece from the network's website about the deliberate contamination of the Ecuador rainforest from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron later bought.

(See the dead link here. You can see the segment on my company's web site. So sue me, CBS.)

Instead of succumbing to Chevron's pressure tactics, CBS' lawyers should grow a backbone and demand to see contamination "playbook" documents that Chevron has been forced to produce in an international arbitration proceeding.

They are explosive and prove 60 Minutes got it right, and the U.S. judge got it wrong.

The playbook details how the company hid evidence of contamination during an eight-year Ecuador trial resulting in a $9.5 billion damage award that the Ecuadorians are waiting for Chevron to pay.

Meanwhile, Chevron is claiming in arbitration that the Republic of Ecuador should pay the judgment, and the two parties are duking it out before a panel of corporate trade lawyers who rent office space at The Hague and act as "judges" – more about them later.

The playbook took center stage in a recent arbitration filing by Ecuador. It appears the country's lawyers have gotten their hands on much, if not the entire, playbook, but the corporate trade lawyers are requiring Ecuador to redact or cover up the really damning evidence.

Even so, a recent rejoinder filed by Ecuador reveals enough to demonstrate what a morally bankrupt company Chevron is. (See the redacted rejoinder here.)

Here's what we know about the playbook, pieced together from the filings of both the Ecuadorians in U.S. court and the Republic of Ecuador in arbitration.

In 2011, the Ecuadorians obtained a few pages from the playbook and tried to enter them into evidence during Chevron's "fraud" trial, but Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan refused to allow any evidence of contamination into the record, including the small excerpt from Chevron's playbook.

(See my recent blog about this legal travesty, and this earlier 2011 press release about the playbook.)

During the Ecuador trial Chevron's paid experts wrote the playbook to document how to handle the contamination they found at the well sites in soil and water tests.

Without the knowledge of the Ecuador court, Chevron's experts conducted unofficial and secret pre-inspections of the sites so they could avoid the badly contaminated areas during the official judicial inspections. (See page 63 in the rejoinder.)

Their pre-inspection findings would have been devastating to their case had they been turned over to the court. So they never were. (See page 63.)

Instead, they used the results to avoid the contaminated areas and test at clean spots, usually from soil and water at elevations higher than the huge, unlined and open pits Texaco built to store permanently pure crude and toxic water.

[Quick backgrounder: Texaco explored for oil in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992 and was the sole operator of the well sites during that time. The Ecuadorians filed their original lawsuit in the U.S. against Texaco in 1993, one year after Texaco left Ecuador. A U.S. judge dismissed their lawsuit ruling in 2001 at Texaco's urging the litigation should be heard in Ecuador. That year, Chevron bought Texaco. In 2003, the Ecuadorians re-filed their case in Ecuador but not before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals instructed Chevron that it must accept Ecuador's jurisdiction, which it did.]

Chevron routinely used deceptive methods, such as mixing clean soil with dirty and undercounting hydrocarbons, to hide or reduce toxic chemicals in samplings. (See pages 66-72.)

This table below, taken from the arbitration filing, reflects just a few of the thousands of pages of playbook notes Chevron's experts and field personnel took, describing the contamination and advising the company about ways to avoid it during the official judicial inspection.

It's heavily redacted. If it's true – as Chevron says it is – that the oil giant is innocent, and the truth is what it seeks, then why won't Chevron release the un-redacted, unedited playbook for all to see?

Maybe it has something to do with the 1995 remediation agreement that Chevron argues is its get-out-of-jail-free card.

The agreement, between Texaco and the Republic of Ecuador, released Texaco from government liability in exchange for a cleanup of a relatively small number of pits. It did not, however, release Texaco from third-party claims.

During the Ecuador trial, tests found contamination levels at the so-called remediated Texaco pits as high or higher than the ones not cleaned. The Ecuadorians accused Texaco of simply throwing dirt on top of the contamination to hide it.

Chevron's playbook backs that up.

At pits Texaco said it cleaned, Chevron – according to its own playbook – found contamination during its secret PIs or pre-inspections. To avoid or reduce the contamination Chevron, during the official judicial inspection, took soil only from the top layer.

Ecuador's rejoinder references the playbook notes of Shushufindi 24, Sacha 21 and Lago Agrio 6, all three well sites that Texaco said it cleaned.

In its secret, pre-inspections Chevron discovered otherwise. (See pages 68-69.)

The rejoinder reads: "During the JIs (judicial inspections) Chevron's experts sought to avoid finding pollution by sampling only to depths that it knew to be clean. For example, at Shushufindi 24, the soil boring log at pit 2 shows that during its PI, (pre-inspection) REDACTED "Then at the JI, Chevron strategically chose to take surface soil samples only – avoiding the known contamination below."

Chevron: What did you find at Shushufini 24, Sacha 21 and Lago Agrio 6?

If you found little or no contamination, then all is well.

If you found contamination and withheld it from the court, then your remediation agreement comes unraveled as does your entire legal case.

Chevron will say today that pre-inspections were allowed, but that's not what its attorneys said during the trial. Chevron wrongfully accused the Ecuadorians of pre-inspections, telling the court that pre-inspections were a "violation of legal security and due process of law," and "no technical team from ChevronTexaco Corporation has performed any secret tests here."

The rejoinder reads:"Yet by that time, Chevron's experts had conducted PIs at least REDACTED (number of) sites and taken over REDACTED (number of) samples." (See page 65.)

Chevron wants its shareholders to believe the Ecuadorians are history, even though enforcement lawsuits are underway in three countries and an appeal of the U.S. ruling is pending before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed an earlier Kaplan attempt to stop enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.

And, while the Republic of Ecuador is fighting aggressively Chevron's arbitration claim, it is doubtful the arbitration panel will rule against the oil giant.

Brought in 2009, Chevron's arbitration action is based on alleged violations of Ecuador's Bilateral Trade Agreement with the United States.

For some time now, multi-national corporations have been abusing these trade agreements. Allowing it to happen are the corporate trade lawyers who sit on arbitration panels as judges and then rotate off as lawyers representing corporations before panels composed of their trade lawyer buddies.

Best example is the successful claim by Phillip Morris against Australia because the country placed warning signs on cigarette packs about the dangers of smoking after Phillip Morris began selling cigarettes there. See here.

International arbitration is fraught with serious conflicts of interest, and some countries are considering ending bi-lateral trade agreements due to numerous upside down arbitration rulings that have put the interest of corporations above a country's residents.

The Ecuadorians' best bet is in Canada, Brazil and Argentina where they have filed enforcement lawsuits to seize Chevron's assets in those countries as payment for the judgment.

Who knows? The entire Chevron playbook may see the light of day in one of those courtrooms soon. Or, 60 Minutes could stand by its work and demand to see it.

Ironically, during Chevron's "fraud" trial, Kaplan quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis' famous maxim that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" but when it comes to the allegations leveled by the Ecuadorians and their lawyer, Steven Donziger, Kaplan and the corporate trade lawyers hanging out at the Hague prefer the dark side of the moon.

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Chevron Knows No Bounds In Ecuador Case, New York Times Article Shows

In a blog on The Huffington Post, the former U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians who won a $19 billion judgment against Chevron for oil contamination argues a recent  New York Times article clearly shows that Chevron knows no bounds in its legal attacks to avoid being held accountable for the destruction it caused in the Ecuadorian rainforest.

Read the blog, written by Karen Hinton, here.

The New York Times article, written by energy reporter Cliff Krauss, is a balanced look at the 20-year-old lawsuit, but neglects to point out some key facts about the case:

1 -- Most importantly, it incorrectly states that the Ecuadorians filed their lawsuit against Texaco, now owned by Chevron, after Texaco entered into a remediation agreement with the Government of Ecuador. They filed their lawsuit in 1993 in a U.S. court. Not long after, Texaco appealed, lobbied, and probably bribed Ecuador's government to get the lawsuit dismissed. It would not and that led to the 1995 remediation agreement, which the U.S. court ignored. Equally important is the fact that the agreement carved out the Ecuadorians' lawsuit, stating that the third-party complaints were not covered by the agreement.

2 -- Chevron has never denied that it has spied and possibly continues to spy on one of the Ecuadorians' attorneys, Steven Donziger, a human rights lawyer whose reputation Chevron is clearly trying to destroy, if not his entire ability to make a living to support his family.

3 -- Chevron charges that the Ecuadorians' lawyers "ghostwrote" an Ecuador court report and two judgments, but have any reporters taken a close look at U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan's recent rulings on Chevron's fraud countersuit? Kaplan's rulings are only slight re-writes of legal briefs filed by Chevron lawyers. U.S. judges often take arguments written in briefs, submitted by one side or the other, and use them in their briefs. In Ecuador, it's no different.

4 -- Krauss quotes Chevron saying that Donziger's "confidents" have turned against him, but everyone involved in the case knows that the individuals in question have been threatened and pressured by Chevron. For more than four years, Chevron pressured clients of Stratus Consulting, the environmental engineering firm for the Ecuadorians, to dump the firm. On the verge of bankruptcy resulting from the Chevron litigation against it, Stratus succumbed to the pressure with an affidavit disavowing the process for writing one of the court reports on contamination at the Chevron oil sites. Chevron dropped its lawsuit against Stratus; however, Stratus continues to stand by its findings of contamination. See here and here.

5 -- Another of Stratus' environmentalists is quoted from a video, saying that the contamination had not spread beyond the oil sites. Had Chevron allowed the reporter to see the entire video, he would have seen that she was concerned about the number of tests taken so far and was arguing for more testing to determine the impact of the contamination beyond the pits. Donziger was arguing that the Ecuadorians only had so much money to spend on tests; that contamination was evident at the oil sites, and that was enough to prove Chevron's guilt. Regardless, there is contamination at the well sites; people live near them; they should be cleaned.

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Appeals Court Asks Judge Kaplan To Defend Bizarre Rulings In Ecuador Pollution Case

Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s actions in Chevron’s efforts to evade a $19 billion adverse judgment for toxic dumping in Ecuador has caught the attention of a New York appellate court.

In a move that has raised eyebrows around the New York bar, the state’s highest federal appellate court recently gave Judge Kaplan 30 days to file papers defending his unprecedented rulings in a “fraud” case Chevron has brought in New York.

The case is the baby of Randy Mastro, former deputy mayor to Rudolph Guliani and now a law partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. (True to form, Mastro helped execute Guliani's racially divisive political strategy in the mid-1990s.)  The lawsuit is designed to help Chevron evade the judgment in Ecuador and retaliate against the indigenous communities and lawyers who have held the company accountable for what is thought to be the largest environmental catastrophe in history.

The Second Circuit invited Kaplan to defend himself in light of a petition filed by the Ecuadorians and one of their lawyers, New York attorney Steven Donziger, seeking his reassignment. While most such requests are quickly dismissed, there clearly is something about Judge Kaplan’s behavior that is catching the Second Circuit’s attention.

Kaplan’s hostility toward Donziger and the Ecuadorians is puzzling because the judge is highly regarded in some quarters.  But in the mandamus petition the facts speak for themselves. For whatever reason, Judge Kaplan seems to be putting his formidable intellect at the service of Chevron rather than using it to administer the case fairly.  For more background, read this supplemental filing and an earlier mandamus petition that documents some of Kaplan’s biased comments toward the Ecuadorians from the bench.

And it what can only be described as an act of chutzpah, Judge Kaplan petitioned the appellate court for more time to file his defense.  The Second Circuit order inviting Kaplan to respond can be read here.

The irony of Judge Kaplan’s request for an extension should not be lost.  In 2011, the judge denied a similar request from Donziger, leaving the solo practitioner only three days to respond to Chevron’s 150-page “fraud” complaint before Kaplan imposed an illegal injunction blocking worldwide enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.  That move was later reversed by the Second Circuit in a unanimous order, but only after severe damage had been done to efforts by the Ecuadorians to clean up Chevron’s toxic mess.

Kaplan also found Donziger “waived” attorney-client privilege because he did not turn in a privilege log quickly enough. In a penalty that only be described as draconian, Kaplan then forced Donziger to turn over to Chevron his entire 19-year case file.

In the meantime, Judge Kaplan continues to do all he can to protect Chevron from having to disclose information about its own corruption, witness tampering, and bribes in Ecuador.  He also has ruled that the Ecuadorians and Donziger cannot defend themselves by showing the overwhelming scientific evidence that formed the basis of the Ecuador court judgment against Chevron.

(For background on how Chevron lies about and distorts basic facts in the case, read this response to allegations from a law professor paid by Chevron.)

Kaplan is also trying to block key evidence that Chevron and its outside lawyers have mounted an espionage ring to spy on adversary counsel.  That’s a flagrant violation of the ethical rules governing the legal profession, and is likely illegal.  But to Kaplan, apparently that’s just what big oil companies do to protect their asset base.

Chevron has admitted it has used at least 180 investigators on the case, mostly from Kroll. Kroll is a large investigations firm that functions in numerous countries like a private KGB for its corporate clients.

Kroll employee San Anson was caught trying to pay $20,000 to an American journalist to spy on consultants to the Ecuadorians.  Another former Kroll spook, Yohi Ackerman, was caught in Ecuador offering $20,000 cash from a suitcase to an Ecuadorian judge in exchange for favorable testimony on behalf of Chevron.

Many of Kroll’s investigators like Anson and Ackerman are bad boys who thrive in the underworld.  But Judge Kaplan and his Special Masters on the case, including his former law partner Max Gitter, have essentially shut down the ability to question these individuals about their misconduct.

Kroll’s CEO, Daniel Karsen, was deposed in early June.  Because of Kaplan’s rulings, Karsen didn’t have to answer most of the questions posed.  Chevron’s harassment of opposing counsel was considered off-limits under Kaplan’s rules.

For a small window into Chevron's spy operation, read this affidavit about how a team of unknown individuals followed Donziger around Manhattan.  For evidence of how Chevron tries to intimidate and “flip” witnesses, read this affidavit from a consultant to the Ecuadorians.

Kaplan also is letting Chevron maintain as “confidential” a series of damning internal videos that prove the company committed a massive fraud in Ecuador by hiding evidence of contamination from the court. Chevron itself shot the videos of its own technicians laughing at the pollution the company left behind and discussing how they would hide it from the court.  Under Kaplan’s rules, this type of criminal activity cannot be used at trial and must remain hidden from the public.

And in a clearly abusive practice, Judge Kaplan has allowed Chevron to hide numerous internal company emails that clearly show corruption and bribe attempts in Ecuador .........

THE REST OF THIS SENTENCE HAS BEEN CENSORED AT CHEVRON'S REQUEST. HERE IS CHEVRON LETTER demanding information be removed.

To Kaplan, this kind of payment apparently qualifies as “proprietary” business information.

Judge Kaplan also has allowed Chevron to hide embarrassing internal emails demonstrating that ... CENSORED BY CHEVRON. That email – CENSORED BY CHEVRON – is “confidential” under Kaplan’s rules.

It is now part of the public record that Chevron has used roughly 2,000 legal personnel and 60 different law firms to try to win by might what it cannot win on the merits.   Read this blistering critique of Kaplan’s biased rulings by famed San Francisco lawyer John Keker, who used to represent Donziger but left the case because of Kaplan’s mismanagement of the litigation.  Keker once famously said he felt “like a goat tethered to a stake” when litigating before the judge.

Despite Chevron’s overwhelming advantage in resources, Keker pointed out that Judge Kaplan consistently bends over backwards to help the oil giant as if it was an orphan or a widow. Chevron grossed about $250 billion last year and paid its CEO John Watson close to $30 million, while the average annual income of the residents who suffer at the hands of the company’s pollution is about $1,000.

We are looking forward to reading how Judge Kaplan tries to explain his rulings that are both helping Chevron evade a valid judgment and are raising questions worldwide about the fairness of the American judiciary.

(For a summary of the Ecuador court decision see here; for a video about the case see here or this 60 Minutes segment about Chevron’s deliberate contamination of the Amazon rainforest.)



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More Revelations About Chevron’s Paid Witness & Its Miami Lawyer, Andres Rivero

Chevron not only is lying to a U.S. court about what happened in the historic Ecuadorian trial that the oil giant lost, it also offered a $1 million bribe to turn evidence against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers, testified an Ecuador judge in a legal declaration filed yesterday in the Southern District Court of New York.

Ecuador Judge Nicolás Zambrano, who found Chevron guilty in February 2011 of the world’s largest oil-related environmental disaster, submitted the filing to the U.S. court, in response to false charges brought by Chevron that Zambrano allowed the Ecuadorians’ lawyers to write his judgment for payment.

Zambrano said in his declaration that only he wrote the detailed 188-page ruling, documenting the extensive contamination of Chevron’s substandard drilling and exploratory system wrought upon the environment and the impoverished indigenous people living near the pollution. Chevron has argued that Zambrano was incapable of writing such a judgment and has entered into evidence testimony by another judge, Alberto Guerra, that the real authors are the Ecuadorians’ lawyers, charges that the lawyers deny.

Only problem is Guerra has been paid at least $324,000 for his testimony and likely will be paid much, much more, given the unbelievable agreement Chevron has negotiated with Guerra, who now lives in Miami with his family and his son’s family – all at Chevron’s expense.

Importantly, Chevron’s own lawyers have admitted that Guerra actually approached Chevron in 2009 about writing the judgment in its favor if they would pay him.

Not surprisingly, about that time, Guerra announced publicly that he thought the lawsuit against Chevron was not legitimate, even though the trial was underway.

Also underway at the same time was a Chevron sting operation to derail the trial by staging a phony bribery attempt against yet another judge who heard the case. It failed miserably, but Chevron spent much of the year organizing it and publicizing its sensational but false allegations of bribes. 

At no time in 2009, 2010 and 2011, during years of hysterically wild accusations of corruption and fraud charged by Chevron, did the oil giant breathe a word about Guerra offering to write the judgment for Chevron for money.

If Chevron wanted to prove that the Ecuador courts were corrupt, here was its perfect opportunity. Yet, Chevron’s lawyers, not known for avoiding a media interview in Quito, were silent.

Now Zambrano reveals that Guerra as Chevron's proxy approached him in August 2012 with an offer to turn evidence against the Ecuadorians’ lawyers for $1 million or as much money as Zambrano might want.

Zambrano rejected the offer then and later avoided overtures in January 2013 by Chevron lawyer Andres Rivero who called Zambrano and urged a meeting. Zambrano refused.

The 20-year-old case, now being litigated to seize Chevron's assets in Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Ecuador as payment for the judgment, continues to take twists and turns in the U.S., both sides slinging charges fast and furious.

But, there are two charges that even Chevron cannot deny: 

One: Chevron’s man, Alberto Guerra, is as corrupt as the day is long.

And, two: Texaco, which Chevron bought, dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic water and oil directly into the rainforest waterways and built 900 unlined pits and filled them with pure crude that has leeched into soil and underground water -- all because it wanted to save money. Chevron's company treated the rainforest like a garbage dump and its people as disposable as the toxic oil it left behind.

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Chevron Can Solve Its Argentina Problem: Pay The Judgment

Chevron's head of operations in Argentina has complained to the Ecuadorians, who recently won a $19 billion judgment against the company for massive oil contamination, that future exploration and drilling is threatened in Argentina because of a local court's decision to freeze its assets.

Efe News Service quoted Miguel Galluccio, Chevron's guy in the South American country, warning that the freeze resulting directly from Chevron's refusal to pay the Ecuador judgment "is absolutely detrimental to Argentina and could have a negative effect on investment."

Ok, Miguel, then convince your company to pay the judgment. You've got the money. It's that simple. Problem solved.

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More Chevron Spies & Lies

This Huffington Post blog is the stuff of spy novels and would be hard to believe if it all hadn't been so well-documented.

In the blog, Karen Hinton offers up a compilation of some of the dirty tricks played by Chevron's private investigative firms that have been hired to discredit the $19 billion judgment against the company for oil contamination.

A short excerpt reads:

The Chevron Corporation has spied and -- perhaps is still spying -- on the Republic of Ecuador, fueling a fierce battle between the oil giant and President Rafael Correa, who is calling on other South American countries to hold Chevron accountable for the world's largest oil-related disaster in the Ecuadorian rainforest. 

Fearing the loss of an historic, long-running environmental lawsuit in the Ecuadorian rainforest in 2009, Chevron secretly videotaped the judge hearing the case - with a spy pen and spy watch - in an effort to derail the trial by entrapping him, government officials and indigenous community leaders in a faked bribery scandal. 

It goes without saying that if Chevron had been caught trying to secretly videotape a U.S. judge, it would be facing criminal charges.

Read the entire blog here.

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Chevron Boxes Itself In With SEC Move

Chevron's decision to ask the SEC to allow it to dropkick shareholder resolutions calling for the duties of Chairman and CEO to be split -- essentially demoting current Chair and CEO John Watson -- has boxed the oil giant into a public relations defeat.

It's a  lose-lose proposition for the multi-national corporation.

The shareholders are concerned about the way Watson and other Chevron executives have handled the $19 billion judgment against the company for massive oil contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Watson and his 2,000 lawyers and legal assistants are spending hundreds of millions of dollars working on a legal attack to stop enforcement of the judgment.

The contamination is obvious. Everyone agrees Chevron's predecessor Texaco put it there. The people suffering are impoverished indigenous tribes and farmers who brought the original lawsuit 20 years ago. As the years have passed, Chevron has suffered from negative publicity casting it as an oil company concerned only about profits.

A growing number of shareholders are saying enough is enough.

Instead of finding a way out of the environmental nightmare, Chevron digs itself deeper into a hole with its SEC request to trounce on its shareholders, by nixing their resolutions and even subpoenaing them in its legal battles.

David Baker in today's San Francisco Chronicle describes the situation, and it's clear from his article that if the SEC rules in Chevron's favor, it will make the company look like the corporate thug that it is. Plus, it won't stop the shareholders from protesting at their annual meeting.

And, if the SEC doesn't, then the shareholders can once again introduce their resolutions and, likely, increase their vote tally, as they have done year after year.

Smart move, Chevron.

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What Happens When Big Oil Freaks Out

Chevron Spending $400 Million A Year On Ecuador Case, Subsidized By U.S Government?

Since 2011, when an Ecuadorian court found Chevron guilty of widespread contamination of the Amazon rain forest and ordered the oil giant to pay $19 billion in damages, Chevron has been spending around $400 million annually on 2,000 legal experts from 60 law firms to evade paying the judgment, according to a recent court filing.

But, for all the money and all the lawyers, Chevron is facing enforcement actions in four countries -- Ecuador, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil – where the Ecuadorians could seize their billions from Chevron’s assets. And, Chevron continues to lose in U.S. courts on the merits. See here.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports today that Chevron has received $2.6 billion in federal tax-free bonds to expand a refinery in Mississippi. The New York Times said Chevron has received more than any U.S.-based corporation and described it as "sweetheart rates for corporations."

What this means is the U.S. federal government is subsidizing Chevron's legal bills as a result of its misconduct in Ecuador, not to mention litigation and accusations Chevron has been defending in Brazil, California, Angola, Nigeria and other places across the globe. See here. 

In a desperate attempt to stop enforcement of the $19 billion judgment, Chevron has accused the Ecuadorian villagers and their lawyers for “fraud” and sued them in about 20 different U.S. court jurisdictions, filing hundreds of legal motions and millions of pages of discovery documents and taking over 40 depositions from experts and consultants -- all designed to distract from the 16 billion gallons of toxic production water it dumped into the Ecuadorian rainforest and the 900 unlined pits Chevron built to store permanently pure crude oil. 

For more details, read this press release.

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Chevron Turns To “Obscure,” “Kangaroo” Court To Save It From $19 Billion Judgment

With hundreds of millions of dollars frozen in Argentina and legal losses in both U.S. and Ecuador courts piling up, Chevron is turning to an “obscure,” “kangaroo” court renting office space in the bowels of The Hague to try and escape the $19 billion judgment, writes Amazon Watch’s Paul Paz y Mino in his latest blog:

“So what do you do if you're a massive corporate criminal that has lost in local and national courts and the court of public opinion, been rejected by the U.S. Supreme court, had your assets seized and frozen abroad, and stand teetering on the brink of losing several other suits costing you billions of dollars in assets after decades of telling your shareholders you have ZERO risk in the matter?

“Well, if you're Chevron you try to weasel your way out any way you can and look to anyone – no matter how removed from the matter – to declare you're the victim rather than the perpetrator. In this particular case, as we wrote about last year, Chevron has found an obscure private arbitration panel, acting under the mantle of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, in an attempt to circumvent justice in Ecuador and threaten that country into interfering in the Lago Agrio case.”

The private arbitration panel that Paul writes about recently demanded that the Government of Ecuador stop the Ecuadorians from enforcing their $19 billion judgment against Chevron. Ecuador has rightly argued that it cannot interfere in its judiciary; that it would be a violation of the Constitution. Meanwhile, the Ecuadorians have filed lawsuits in Argentina, Canada and Brazil to try and seize Chevron’s assets in those countries. Courts in Argentina have frozen Chevron’s assets there, believed to be worth about $2 billion. Chevron has few assets in Ecuador.

The panel is composed of corporate lawyers, who have close ties to Chevron’s law firm, King & Spalding and is highly conflicted in that its members are allowed to serve on the panel, even though they are representing other corporations before another panel at the same time. See this blog here for more details.

Read Paul’s entire blog here and watch this video, made by Friends of the Earth.

The Ecuadorians have ignored this panel and will continue to do so, given that it has no jurisdiction in the enforcement of the $19 billion judgment that they received from a legitimate court in Ecuador for the environmental crimes of Chevron.


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