$19B Ecuador Liability Puts Chevron CEO Watson On Hot Seat Before Annual Meeting

Amazon Watch has issued this press release (see below) about Chevron's upcoming shareholder's meeting and the heat CEO and Chairman of the Board John Watson will take from activist shareholders about the Ecuador liability.

OAKLAND, Calif., May 14 /CSRwire/ - Facing growing shareholder unrest over asset seizure actions and forced to testify about his alleged misconduct in the $19 billon Ecuador case, Chevron CEO John Watson again will be on the hot seat at the company’s annual meeting in late May where rainforest indigenous villagers and investors plan to confront him over his company’s toxic dumping in the Amazon.

In a stunning rebuke to Watson, U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis last week ordered that he and another top Chevron legal official sit for depositions to be taken by lawyers for the villagers and one of their representatives, New York-based attorney Steven Donziger. (See the judicial order hereand a Reuters article here.) Watson likely will have to answer questions about his own role in the case, including payments from Chevron officials for witness testimony, among other hot-button topics that the villagers say prove Chevron committed crimes in Ecuador.

The depositions had been furiously opposed by Chevron’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who are facing their own ethical challenges in defending the oil giant’s toxic dumping in Ecuador. (See this court ruling and this blog.)

At the Chevron annual meeting, scheduled for May 29 at company headquarters near San Francisco, Watson also will try to beat back two shareholder resolutions that directly challenge his mishandling of the Ecuador liability. Currently, Chevron faces enforcement actions targeting billions of company assets in Argentina, Canada and Brazil (see here for Canada, here for Brazil, and here for Argentina) and has suffered a series of devastating courtroom setbacks, including one in the U.S. Supreme Court, which prevented the oil giant from using U.S. courts to block international enforcement efforts.

The Financial Times reported just this week that Chevron was forced to “rethink” a planned $1.5 billion investment in a huge gas field in Argentina because of the enforcement action stemming from the Ecuador judgment. Earlier, a Chevron official has testified that the enforcement actions could cause “irreparable harm” to the company’s global operations.

The enforcement actions stem from an Ecuador court finding that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related diseases. A summary of the judgment, based on a 220,000 page trial record and more than 64,000 chemical sampling results, can be found here.

A video about Chevron’s human rights abuses in Ecuador can be viewed here while a 60 Minutes report on the legal battle – which documents how Chevron installed pipes to deliberately run oil sludge into streams – can be viewed here.

Watson also is under fire for subpoenaing the files of several shareholder critics and alleging they are in a “conspiracy” with the Ecuadorian villagers who won the judgment against the company.New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson called the Chevron counterattack against its own investors “remarkable” in the annals of shareholder activism. (See Morgenson's article here.)

Last year, a resolution critical of Chevron management for the Ecuador liability received a whopping 38% of the vote from shareholders representing a combined $73 billion worth of Chevron stock. In addition, 40 institutional investors representing $580 billion in assets sent Watson a letter asking him to settle the case.

This year, the two shareholder resolutions that cite the Ecuador liability as a driving factor call for Chevron to appoint a director with environmental expertise and to lower the threshold needed to hold a special meeting.

Watson also faces these additional problems related to the Ecuador liability:

**Conflict of interest. Shareholders and activists say Watson should step down as Chevron CEO because of his failure to properly vet the Ecuador liability when the company purchased Texaco for $31 billion in 2001. Watson was a key driver behind the controversial transaction even though Amazon Watch specifically warned the company about the size of the liability.

**Deceit of shareholders. Watson also has been accused of lying to shareholders and the markets about key facts in the case, according to a recent report prepared by a Canadian securities lawyer. Several shareholders and a U.S. Congresswoman have asked the SEC to investigate Chevron for violating its disclosure obligations under U.S. law.

**Use of Kroll to spy on Chevron adversaries. The order from Judge Francis also requires that an official from the U.S. investigative services company Kroll, which essentially functions as a private surveillance agency for Chevron on the Ecuador case, sit for a deposition. Kroll operative San Anson was caught trying to bribe journalists to spy on the plaintiffs, while evidence surfaced the company has been involved in payments to judges in Ecuador and espionage against Donziger and his family, who live in Manhattan.

**Cash for witness testimony. Under Watson’s leadership, Chevron used Miami lawyer Andres Rivero to offer a suitcase full of cash to a former Ecuador judge in exchange for favorable testimony. Chevron later admitted it paid the judge more than ten times his annual salary and moved him to the U.S., where it is helping him obtain political asylum even though he is an admitted criminal.

**The Diego Borja bribery scandal. Under Watson’s tenure, Chevron admitted that it paid former employee Diego Borja more than $2 million to try to sabotage the Ecuador trial by entrapping a sitting judge in a fake bribery scandal. The move backfired, but the company still moved Borja to the U.S., where it pays him a substantial salary – the plaintiffs call it “hush money” – with no indication he is working.

As for enforcement actions, Watson faces a series of growing headaches.

In early November, a court in Argentina ordered that the company's assets be frozen while independent analysts are beginning to take notice that Chevron faces significant litigation problems around the world related to the Ecuador judgment. Chevron has $2 billion worth of assets in Argentina, and approximately $80 million of in cash is already in a court escrow account pending resolution of the enforcement action.

While Chevron recently won a temporary stay of the enforcement action in Canada on narrow technical grounds, the court found that the Ecuadorians established jurisdiction over Chevron subsidiaries that control roughly $15 billion worth of assets. The stay is now on appeal, with a decision expected in a few months.

In Brazil, where Chevron has an estimated $4 billion in assets, the Ecuador enforcement action is going through a streamlined process in the country’s highest court, with a ruling expected sometime in 2014. Chevron also faces a lawsuit from Brazilian authorities over its spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in 2011.

On a more personal level, the indigenous communities in Ecuador plan to confront Watson directly at the annual meeting. In past years, Watson has turned off the microphones of the Ecuadorians to silence them.

“Chevron needs to put its pants on, start acting like a grown up and accept responsibility for its mess in Ecuador,” Watson was told last year by Luz Trinidad Andrea Cusangua, an Ecuadorian who traveled from the rainforest to speak at the 2012 annual meeting.

Two years ago, Chevron’s annual meeting in Houston erupted in chaos when five shareholder critics were arrested as they confronted the company about its human rights abuses in Ecuador. At the time, Watson was accused of "losing his head" over the Ecuador case by Rainforest Action Network’s, Maria Ramos. Last year, he prevented two villagers from showing a video of the company’s damage to their ancestral lands. Chevron security officials also blocked them from passing out copies of the video to shareholders.

“Since becoming CEO Watson has led Chevron further down a dismal path – one where its international reputation is that of a corporate criminal on the run from justice,” said Paul Paz y Miño, a director at Amazon Watch, which has been monitoring the Ecuador liability for a decade.

“At any other company with an independent Board of Directors that adhered to proper ethical standards, Watson probably would have been fired by now,” added Paz y Miño.

For more background on the case, see this update prepared by Fenton Communications.

For more information, please contact:

Matt Krack

Twitter: @ChevronPit

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Chevron Ignores Safety Standards At California Refinery Where 19 Fires, Spills & Explosions Have Occurred Since 1989

About 4,800 Richmond, California residents have sued Chevron for negligence at an oil refinery and putting them at risk by not issuing public health warnings immediately after a recent explosion, the 19th disaster to have occurred at the refinery since 1989. The explosion, resulting from a corroded pipe, exposed them to toxic fumes that brought on respiratory, gastrointestinal and other serious health problems.

Chevron's refusal to adhere to state and federal safety regulations is another example of the oil giant's disrespect for environmental laws both in the United States and abroad.

See this Huffington Post blog and this recent story about the refinery.

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Hell Froze Over As Argentina Embargoes Chevron's $2 Billion In Assets

Yesterday, hell froze over when an Argentine court embargoed or, in effect, froze up to potentially $19 billion in Chevron assets in the South American country.

Now it's time to fight it out on the ice.

Chevron, which now has about $2 billion in assets in Argentina, has sworn it will never pay a dime to cleanup the contamination it left behind in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Said former General Counsel Charles James: "Not till hell freezes over, and then we will fight it out on the ice."

Chevron has defied Ecuador's courts, refusing to pay an enforceable $19 billion judgment and forcing the Ecuadorians to file lawsuits to seize assets in Ecuador, Brazil, Canada and Argentina to obtain the damage award for one of the world's largest oil-related environmental disasters.

The Ecuadorians and their lawyers -- some of the top litigators in these four countries -- have their skates on.

See the press release below and read more details here and here in Kevin Koenig's Amazon Watch blog:

BUENOS AIRES, /CSRwire/ - In a major blow to Chevron’s effort to avoid paying a historic $19 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador, an Argentine judge today signed the first of what is expected to be many orders freezing billions of dollars of assets owned by the U.S. oil company.

The order, signed by Civil Judge Adrian Elcuj Miranda of the Commercial Court of Justice in Buenos Aries, freezes almost all Chevron assets in Argentina pending enforcement of the Ecuador judgment. The embargo applies to 100% of Chevron's capital in Argentina, 100% of dividends, all of Chevron's stake in pipeline operator Oleoductos del Valle SA, 40% of Chevron's oil sales to Argentine refineries, and 40% of the money Chevron has deposited in Argentine banks, said Enrique Bruchou, the lawyer who represents the indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador who brought the lawsuit.

In 2011, Chevron was found liable in Ecuador for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related health problems. A video on the case can be seen here; a written summary of the evidence can be read here; and a segment from the U.S. news show 60 Minutes on the case can be viewed here.

Since Chevron has refused to pay the Ecuador judgment despite submitting to jurisdiction there, lawyers for the affected rainforest communities filed an action last week to seize the oil giant's assets in Argentina. The affected communities filed asset seizure actions against Chevron in the last few weeks in Canada, Brazil, and Ecuador.

Chevron has at least $2 billion worth of assets in Argentina, said Bruchou.  The freeze order applies to the entire $19 billion amount of the Ecuador judgment, meaning that Chevron will effectively be barred from investing further in Argentina unless it wants to risk seizure of those assets as well.

“We are now on the fast track to collection in our two-decade struggle to force Chevron to clean up its awful environmental disaster,” said Luis Yanza, the Ecuadorian community organizer and driving force behind the lawsuit since it was filed in 1993.

“We are committed to holding Chevron fully accountable for the crimes it has committed against our indigenous peoples,” he added.

The move by the Argentine judge is the first time the plaintiffs have been successful in freezing assets outside their home territory of Ecuador.  The assets will remain frozen until the court rules whether it will enforce the Ecuador judgment, which is expected to be relatively smooth given that the nation has signed a reciprocal enforcement treaty in the region that includes Ecuador.

The legal action in Argentina derives its authority in part from an international treaty in Latin America called the Inter-American Convention on the Execution of Preventive Measures. The treaty, which dates from the late 1970s, allows for the automatic freezing of assets of a defendant that fails to abide by the law and refuses to pay a final foreign judgment.

The Preventive Measures treaty has been ratified by Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Uruguay. Venezuela and Chile have signed the treaty but not ratified it.

In all, the amount of Chevron assets in the four countries where enforcement actions are pending are worth at least $10 billion based on the latest estimates, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer.  Seizure actions will continue to be filed against Chevron assets in more countries to make sure the full amount of the judgment is collected, he added.

Bruchou, a native of Buenos Aries, founded his firm in 1990 after working for several years at the U.S. law firm Shearman & Sterling.  International Financial Law Review named his firm, Bruchou Fernandez Madero & Lombardi, the best in Argentina for five consecutive years. Bruchou himself was named “Law Firm Leader of the Year” in 2011 by the prestigious Latin Lawyer magazine.

In a press conference last week in Buenos Aires, Bruchou said that enforcement of the Ecuador judgment in Argentina and other Latin American countries will signal to foreign investors that they should apply the same environmental standards they use at home to areas where vulnerable indigenous and farmer communities are located.  “We ask for no more than that and no less than that,” he said.  “We call it responsible foreign investment.”

Just recently, a court in Ecuador ordered the seizure of an estimated $200 million in Chevron’s assets in that country, which include bank accounts and a $96.3 million debt owed the oil giant by Ecuador’s government.

The area of Ecuadorian rainforest affected by Chevron’s toxic dumping was once one of the most bio-diverse ecosystems on the planet.  It is home to hundreds of plant and animal species but has been pockmarked with more than 900 open-air toxic waste pits left by Chevron, which operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand.

Soil tests of Chevron wells sites during the Ecuador trial indicated the oil giant left massive quantities of cancer-causing hydrocarbons, sometimes at levels hundreds of times higher than permissible norms.  Approximately 9,000 people are expected to contract cancer as a result if there is no immediate clean-up, according to a study by Dr. Daniel Rourke, former of the Rand Corporation.  See here.

"We have fought now for almost two decades to correct the injustice created by Chevron in Ecuador,” said Fajardo, who grew up in Ecuador’s oil fields and is the recipient of a CNN Hero Award.

"While Chevron might think it can ignore court orders in Ecuador, it will be impossible for Chevron to ignore court orders in countries where it maintains substantial assets,” he added.  "The decision of the Argentine judge proves that the sentence in Ecuador is legitimate and will be enforced in any country that observes the rule of law."

The action in Argentina comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Chevron’s attempt to block enforcement of the judgment and the oil giant itself suffered a devastating series of courtroom setbacks. In May, Chevron CEO John Watson suffered a stunning reprimand when investors holding 38% of the company’s shares voted for a resolution that found he mishandled the Ecuador case.

Watson’s former lawyer, Charles James, has said Chevron will fight the Ecuador judgment “until hell freezes over, and then skate it out on the ice.”  However, Chevron Comptroller Rex Mitchell recently testified in New York fedeal court that the seizure actions filed by the Ecuadorians would cause “irreparable harm” to company operations.

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Ted Olson Loses a Big One for Chevron Before the U.S. Supreme Court

Ted Olson needs to learn that it’s hard to put lipstick on Chevron’s pig in Ecuador.

In yet another setback for Chevron, the U.S. Supreme Court this week declined a petition signed by Olson to restore the unprecedented global “injunction” obtained last year by the company purporting to block enforcement of the $19 billion Ecuador court judgment.  That injunction – imposed by controversial federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan – provoked an uproar in the international legal community and was unainmously reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate then brought in his friend Olson, the former Solicitor General of the United States and the mastermind behind more than 50 Supreme Court arguments (including the winning side in Bush v. Gore).  Olson asked the Court to take the radical step of summarily reversing the Second Circuit ruling without argument or briefing.

Instead of acceding to Olson’s unusual request, the Court decided not even to ask for briefs or argument as it would in a typical case.  It just flat out rejected the original request, and also rejected Olson’s backup plan to file briefs -- all without as much as a comment.

This is the ultimate rebuke not only to Chevron and Olson, but also to Judge Kaplan.  Kaplan's global injunction --  the crown jewel of Chevron's defense to enforcement -- is now officially dead.

One must ask if Olson really understands the extent to which his new client committed human rights violations against indigenous groups on a mass scale in Ecuador's rainforest.  To understand the extent of Chevron’s misconduct in Ecuador, see this video, this 60 Minutes segment, and this report from a highly-rated Australian news show.

The disaster in Ecuador was not an accident, like BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010.  Chevron designed its system of oil extraction in Ecuador to pollute, and pollute it did – to the tune of 4 million gallons of toxic waste dumped daily in to Amazon waterways for roughly two decades.  (Chevron operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992 under the Texaco brand.)  Environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy visited the area in the late 1980s and wrote of witnessing an apocalyptic environmental disaster.  

In his petition, Olson presented the Justices with Chevron’s "blame the victim" narrative that the indigenous groups and their U.S. counsel somehow defrauded the oil giant by filing the lawsuit.  After reading the reply of the Ecuadorians -- where Chevron is hung by evidence from its own corporate files that it committed gross wrongdoing -- the Justices clearly were not moved by Olson's pleading.

By denying Chevron, the Justices now have joined with 18 U.S. federal trial court judges and four federal appeals courts who have rejected Chevron's fraud claims in whole or in part in various litigations over the last two years.

The Supreme Court decision is also the latest blow to Olson’s law firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.  Chevron hired the firm in 2009 to “rescue” it from the impending Ecuador liability.  Not only did Gibson Dunn lose the largest environmental case ever, it has continued to pile up losses for Chevron in various trial and appellate courts in the U.S. and Ecuador.  It's fast approaching Tebow Time for Chevron but there appears to be no Tebow on the roster.

Another big loser with the Supreme Court decision is Gibson Dunn’s self-anointed “mob prosecutor” Randy Mastro, who now has lost every argument he ever made on behalf of Chevron before a U.S. appellate court.  Mastro, the leader of the Gibson Dunn rescue mission, had found a willing audience in Judge Kaplan in New York.  But Kaplan now lacks any power to block the judgment, thus severing the rescue operation's last lifeline in the U.S.

At this point, Kaplan’s open biases against the Ecuadorians are so well-documented that they could well provoke a backlash against Chevron in foreign courts being asked to enforce the judgment.  Judges generally don't like to be told by courts of other countries what they can and cannot do.  That's not good for comity, international relations, or the image of the U.S. judiciary as a whole.

Gibson Dunn also has provoked fierce criticism for trying to help Chevron pry into the private emails of the company’s critics; for sending 11 lawyers to court to cover a minor hearing related to the Ecuador judgment; and for being involved in efforts to offer inducements (e.g., bribes) to Ecuador officials to violate their country's Constitution and quash the case.  The law firm itself was found by courts to have committed ethical violations on behalf of Chevron.

Much of Chevron's misconduct and fraud in Ecuador is documented in chilling detail in the affidavit of Juan Pablo Saenz and the lawsuit filed against Chevron by the longtime legal counsel for the Ecuadorians, Steven Donziger.  These documents provide a taste of how desperate the company has become to avoid being held accountable for the wanton destruction it caused in Ecuador.

Look for Olson and his partners to continue to exploit the billing opportunities provided by their increasingly futile legal odyssey  -- one that also has sparked a shareholder rebellion against their ultimate client, Chevron CEO John Watson.  Let's not forget as well the calls by shareholders and a U.S. Congresswoman for an SEC investigation to determine if Watson is lying to downplay the Ecuador risk.

Ted Olson is without question a brilliant lawyer.  Watson will certainly pay for the next batch of lipstick for Gibson Dunn to try to smear over the lips of the Ecuador judgment.  But that pig is not getting prettier.

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U.S. Supreme Court Squelches Chevron Appeal On Ecuador Case

The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected Chevron’s latest attempt to block global enforcement of a historic $19 billion environmental judgment from Ecuador’s courts, removing another hurdle for rainforest indigenous groups as they continue their efforts to seize billions of dollars of Chevron assets around the world.

Chevron's losing petition was prepared and signed by Ted Olson, one of the top Supreme Court litigators in the country and the former Solicitor General of the United States under the last Bush Administration.  Olson works at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Chevron's lead outside law firm on the Ecuador matter and itself the subject of judicial rulings that it has committed ethical violations on behalf of the oil giant.

Jim Tyrrell of Patton Boggs and John Keker of Keker & Van Nest signed papers for the Ecuadorian rainforest communities and their counsel.

The Supreme Court decision represents the latest of numerous courtroom setbacks for Chevron as the company tries to evade paying the Ecuador judgment, which was issued in early 2011 after an eight-year trial found that the oil giant deliberately dumped more than 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon.  A three-judge appellate panel in Ecuador later affirmed the decision, criticizing Chevron harshly for threatening judges and filing frivolous motions to delay the proceedings.

Several pro-business groups who are funded in part by Chevron, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, had weighed in on the oil giant’s behalf before the Supreme Court.

When Chevron refused to pay the Ecuador judgment, lawyers for the 30,000 affected villagers this summer hired prominent law firms to file seizure actions targeting billions of dollars of Chevron assets in Canada and Brazil.  They have promised to file more seizure actions soon in other countries, potentially creating significant operational problems for the oil giant, according to Chevron’s own court filings. See here. 

Chevron’s use of substandard operational practices in Ecuador – it operated there from 1964 to 1992 under the Texaco brand -- decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer that has killed or threatens to kill thousands of people, according to findings of the court.  A summary of the evidence against Chevron can be found here, a video about the case can be seen here, while a summary of the cancer deaths can be found here.

Independent journalists, such as 60 Minutes and a prominent Australian news show, also have confirmed Chevron’s extensive pollution in Ecuador.

Chevron had asked the Supreme Court to salvage an unprecedented injunction imposed in March 2011 by New York federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan purporting to bar worldwide enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.  That injunction provoked outrage in much of the legal community and was overturned unanimously in September 2011 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the ruling the Supreme Court declined to review.

Over the last two years, federal courts at every level in the United States – trial courts, intermediate appellate courts, and now the Supreme Court – have now rejected Chevron’s attempts to block or undermine the Ecuador judgment.  The oil giant claims the judgment was procured by fraud, a charge the villagers and their lawyers say is a smokescreen invented by Chevron to cover-up its own criminal behavior in Ecuador as found by various courts.

“Chevron's latest loss before the Supreme Court is an example of the company's increasingly futile battle to avoid paying its legal obligations in Ecuador," said Aaron Marr Page, a lawyer for the Ecuadorians.

"Chevron is running from justice while its toxic dumping continues to create an imminent danger of death to indigenous peoples in Ecuador,” said Page.

Chevron’s losses in U.S. courts on the Ecuador case are mounting fast.

In the last two years, 18 U.S. trial courts and four appellate courts have either rejected or declined to consider Chevron’s campaign to paint the Ecuador judgment as a product of “fraud”, according to an analysis of court data by representatives of the rainforest communities.  That analysis can be read here.


Even Judge Kaplan, who has been subject to withering criticism for his biases against the Ecuadorians, further gutted Chevron’s strategy when he dismissed or stayed three of Chevron’s fraud claims and its unjust enrichment claim against the rainforest communities in a racketeering case pending against them in New York.

In its public relations materials, Chevron continually tried to claim U.S. courts have found “fraud” in the Ecuador proceedings.  In reality, three different Ecuadorian courts have heard Chevron’s allegations and rejected them, while no U.S. court has found fraud on the merits after an evidentiary hearing or trial.

In the handful of courts where judges made such a preliminary finding, it was done in the context of simple discovery proceedings and later was overturned by federal appellate courts.

A panel of federal appellate judges in Philadelphia, for example, blasted Chevron for attacking Ecuador’s courts – calling its comments “disparaging”.  Another federal judge in New Orleans accused the oil giant of using “hyperbole” and trying to make “a mountain out of a molehill.” See here.

This was the second time in the long history of the Ecuador lawsuit that the Supreme Court declined to hear a Chevron petition for review.  In 2009, the court declined to review a decision that denied Chevron’s attempt to force Ecuador’s government into a private arbitration over who should pay for the clean-up in Ecuador.

For that petition, Chevron used high-profile lawyer Paul Clement, another former U.S. Solicitor General.  Clement argued the losing side in the famous case last year over the Obama Administration’s health care law.

Just last week, the Gibson Dunn law firm was criticized for overbilling Chevron by sending 11 lawyers to a relatively minor court hearing.

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