Privacy Advocates Say Chevron Wants to "Harass and Intimidate" People Supportive of Ecuadorians' Lawsuit Against Oil Giant

Courthouse News writes that privacy advocates say Chevron "wants to  harass and intimidate critics of a massive oil contamination in Ecuador with intrusive subpoenas of more than 70 email accounts."

Read more about Chevron's aggressive tactics to invade people's privacy here.

Become a follower of The Chevron Pit.

Also follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit and like us on Facebook.

Visit and watch a video on ChevronToxico.com to find out more.

Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

No Love for Chevron In U.S. Courts

Chevron’s courtroom setbacks in the U.S. related to its $19 billion Ecuador liability are piling up as CEO John Watson faces increased shareholder pressure around the world to settle the case, according to an analysis of all legal actions filed by the oil giant in U.S. federal courts.

The new analysis follows reports that Watson’s plan to evade paying the Ecuador judgment is faltering as U.S. courts are showing increasing hostility to Chevron’s claims that it is the victim of fraud in Ecuador, an allegation that the plaintiffs say is nothing more than a smokescreen for Chevron to hide evidence of its criminal activity in the South American nation.

Separately, shareholders representing more than $580 billion in assets have called on Watson to settle the case while shareholders and a U.S. Congresswoman have asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine if Watson and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate are lying to company shareholders about the Ecuador risk.

Last year, after an eight-year trial, an Ecuador court found the company liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon and imposed a $19 billion liability.  Evidence showed indigenous groups were decimated by the pollution and that thousands of people have either died or are at risk of contracting cancer.

The analysis of Chevron’s court results, prepared after tracking the results of 23 separate legal actions filed by Chevron and its lead outside counsel Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in trial courts around the country, produced the following findings:

**Not a single U.S. court at any level – trial, appellate, or even the U.S. Supreme Court – has accepted Chevron’s fake fraud narrative in any kind of definitive finding, and the vast majority of courts to hear Chevron arguments have flatly rejected them.

**In all, 18 different U.S. federal trial courts and all four federal appellate courts have either rejected Chevron’s claims outright, or refused to adopt them.  The U.S. Supreme Court also denied a Chevron petition to review a decision denying it the right to arbitrate the issue of liability.

**Separately, two courts in Ecuador have flatly rejected Chevron’s fraud claims in the most definitive rulings yet on Chevron’s arguments.  In Ecuador, unlike the U.S., both parties had the opportunity to fully present evidence and brief the issues.

**The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, considered one of the most influential appellate courts in the country, has vacated or stayed three trial court rulings favoring Chevron and also nullified the crown jewel of Chevron’s legal strategy -- an unprecedented and illegal “global injunction” against enforcement of the Ecuador judgment issued by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.

 **A federal appellate court in Philadelphia reversed a discovery order stating “[t]he circumstances supporting [Chevron’s] claim of fraud largely are allegations and allegations are not factual findings.” The appeals court further chastised Chevron’s attacks on the Ecuador courts as “disparaging”.

A number of other U.S. trial and appellate courts have specifically rejected Chevron’s fraud allegations, as follows: 

**In the District of Vermont, Judge William Sessions conducted a review of Chevron’s so-called “fraud” evidence as it related to an expert report on damages and concluded “the Court is satisfied that no evidence of fraud, false pretenses or undue influence appears.”

**In the District of Massachusetts, Judge Joseph Tauro rejected Chevron’s claims, finding that the oil giant “has not shown Respondent engaged in or intended any criminal or fraudulent activity.”

**In Ohio, federal Judge Karen Litkovitz threw out “fraud” allegations against one of the plaintiff’s experts, concluding Chevron had “no factual basis” for its claim.

**In Tennessee, federal Judge Joe Brown concluded that Chevron’s allegations were “quickly spiraling out of control” and rejected the attempt to obtain discovery via the “fraud” claims.

**During oral argument before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (based in New Orleans), Federal Judge Fortunato Benavides scolded Chevron for throwing “these words about massive fraud and, uh, all this hyperbole… you're making a mountain out of a molehill”.

In addition to the various legal setbacks, Chevron recently was charged with trying to intimidate people who worked on the legal case by trying to subpoena their private email accounts from Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail.

A video on the case can be seen here ; a written summary here; and a 60 Minutes segment here.

Become a follower of The Chevron Pit.

Also follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit and like us on Facebook.

Visit and watch a video on ChevronToxico.com to find out more.

Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Ecuador Government Urges U.S. Judge to Release Documents That Expose Chevron Corruption

A U.S. federal magistrate judge in San Francisco is inexplicably sitting on documents that tie Chevron to attempts to corrupt the Ecuadorian judiciary to evade payment of a $19 billion liability related to the world's worst oil-related ecological disaster.  The magistrate judge, Nathanael Cousins, has provided no good reason why he has waited more than one year to make a decision about whether to release hundreds of explosive documents from Chevron and the Mason Investigative Group.  See the press release below.

U.S. Judge Sits On Documents That Tie Chevron to Corruption In Ecuador

Amazon Defense Coalition, 25 September 2012, Contact: Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109.  Karen@hintoncommunications.com

 San Francisco – A U.S. federal judge in San Francisco is inexplicably delaying the release of documents that would shed light on Chevron’s extensive misconduct in judicial proceedings in Ecuador where it recently was hit with a $19 billion judgment for dumping toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest. 

More than a year has passed since Federal Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins was asked by rainforest villagers in Ecuador’s rainforest to force Chevron and the Mason Investigative Group to release hundreds of pages of material related to a scheme to bribe an Ecuadorian judge and undermine the court process there, said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.

More recently, the Republic of Ecuador – represented by the U.S. law firm Winston & Strawn – urged Cousins to release the documents, all to no avail.  Cousins heard extensive argument on the issue more than a year ago and the documents have been on his desk for months pending decision. 

“We believe Judge Cousins is sitting on a treasure trove of documents that will shed light on Chevron’s corrupt activities in Ecuador and are highly relevant to ongoing litigation,” said Hinton.  “He should act immediately on these long-overdue requests.”

The government of Ecuador first asked for the documents in March 2011.  That August, Northern California District Judge Charles Breyer ordered Chevron and the Mason Group to produce the documents.

When Chevron and the Mason Group claimed most of the documents were privileged, Judge Cousins was ordered to review them; his ruling has been pending ever since.

   

Documents that the plaintiffs are urging Cousins to release include: 

**The contents of an IPhone from Chevron operative Diego Borja, believed to be held by Robert Mittelstaedt, a lawyer from Chevron law firm Jones Day in San Francisco.   Borja has said the information on the phone proves that Chevron “cooked evidence” during the trial and if released would allow the villagers to win the case “just like that”. See  here. 

**Emails and other materials that prove Borja was paid more than $2 million in hush money from Chevron to maintain his loyalty.   

**Materials related to Wayne Hansen, a convicted felon used by Chevron to help Borja try to bribe a judge in Ecuador.  With the help of the Mason Group, Hansen was moved from California to Peru, apparently to avoid being served with a subpoena.  See this Courthouse News article.

 **Early drafts of an “affidavit” prepared by Borja that will prove that his later affidavit submitted to the court contains false information. 

**Materials and correspondence that shows that Mittelstaedt and his partners managed the intimate details of Borja’s life after he mysteriously moved from Ecuador to the U.S., at Chevron’s expense, to evade an official investigation in his home country. Mittelstaedt, for example, took care of payments for Borja’s cell phone, plane tickets, rent, and furniture. 

Chevron hired several powerhouse law firms to try to persuade Cousins to block release of the documents.    Those firms include Arguedes, Cassman & Headley, Jones Day, and Boies Schiller. 

“Clearly Chevron is willing to spend any amount necessary to prevent or to delay the release of these documents,” said Hinton.  

The Republic of Ecuador, in a letter to Cousins sent in August, said it “is not only being denied the right to review the documents it has been seeking for over a year, but is unable to pursue necessary related discovery” for its arbitration case against Chevron.

Cousins was appointed to the federal judiciary in 2011.  Before joining the Court, he was a federal prosecutor in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice – ironically, the same division that was formerly headed by Chevron’s current General Counsel, R. Hewitt Pate. 

After an eight-year trial, Chevron in 2011 was found liable for deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways and forests to save on production costs.  Evidence before the court showed the contamination caused an outbreak of cancer and decimated indigenous groups.

Having won their judgment, the Ecuadorians have filed asset seizure actions against Chevron in Canada and Brazil to force the company to abide by the Ecuador court ruling.  The trial was held in Ecuador at Chevron’s request after originally being filed in U.S. court.

A video about Chevron’s human rights violations and fraudulent cover-up in the Ecuador can be seen here.  A written summary of the evidence used to find Chevron liable can be seen here.

Become a follower of The Chevron Pit.

Also follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit and like us on Facebook.

Visit and watch a video on ChevronToxico.com to find out more.

Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

How Chevron Lies to U.S. Courts

Gibson Dunn’s Randy Mastro Continues His Mobster Approach to Ecuador Litigation

Chevron’s lead outside lawyer on the Ecuador environmental litigation, Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, always plays fast and loose with the facts.  His goal is to try to distract attention from Chevron’s human rights violations and fraudulent misconduct in Ecuador to cover-up the company’s leading role in creating the world’s worst oil-related environmental disaster.  Now he has been caught in another outright deception, with U.S. courts as the victim.

Mastro likes to fashion himself as a former “mob prosecutor”.  But that reality is far from the truth, given that he “served” in the civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the 1980s and therefore never prosecuted anybody.  In fact, Mastro was considered a “weak link” in the office, according to a former colleague who spoke to the Chevron Pit.

Lies by Mastro and other Gibson Dunn lawyers such as Andrea Neuman and Kristin Hendricks about the Ecuadorians are notorious for causing ethical problems for Chevron as it desperately tries to avoid paying the $19 billion judgment imposed in Ecuador after an eight-year trial that produced more than 220,000 pages of record evidence documenting the company’s wrongdoing.  See here and here.

Mastro is the mastermind behind a long list of dirty tricks being played against the Ecuadorians after Chevron was found guilty for the dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste into the water supply of the rainforest. See here and here.

Mastro’s intent is clear: to use any means necessary to help Chevron stop enforcement of the Ecuador judgment by creating a fake narrative that the rainforest indigenous communities and their lawyers are greedy, corrupt and even violent.

Mastro and his minions at Gibson Dunn (including more than 60 lawyers working on the case and well over $100 million in annual billings) have waded through 600 hours of video outtakes from a documentary about the environmental disaster in Ecuador, called Crude. Mastro reduced the 600 hours to a few minutes of heavily edited and manipulated comments -- all as part of his effort to derail the historic lawsuit and, in the process, destroy the reputation of Steven Donziger, a lawyer who for almost two decades has fought in virtual anonymity on behalf of the rainforest communities victimized by Chevron.

This corporate defense tactic executed by Mastro is pretty simple – when your client commits massive crimes and fraud, you attack the lawyers and try to focus attention on anything but the merits of the case. Unlike Mastro, most lawyers who engage in this tawdry tactic are smart enough not to get entangled in their own lies.

Read how “mob prosecutor” Mastro has completely distorted the meaning of Donziger’s comments in the video outtakes before multiple U.S. courts (chronicled in greater detail on pages 137 to 143 of this document):

 **In his typical preposterous way, Mastro in court papers accused Donziger of establishing an “armed army” to literally attack the Ecuador court with weapons.  In fact, Donziger was trying to organize a lawful rally of his clients to press the court to resist Chevron’s corrupt strategy to delay the trial by drowning the court in papers and threatening judges with jail time.  This illegal tactics had paralyzed the proceedings.  In the full transcript – not the one Mastro submitted to U.S. courts – it is clear Donziger was engaging in completely lawful and appropriate behavior no different than any lawyer would do (or should do) if his clients were being corruptly denied a fair trial by an adversary.

 Mastro accused Donziger of saying that only politics and the press coverage mattered during the trial; that the trial itself was of no consequence. Donziger, however, was actually making a much different point: that the court had all the evidence it needed to convict Chevron, and that fact needed to be conveyed to political and press contacts. (Of course, the hypocrisy is astounding.  Chevron is one of the largest political donors in this country and spends hundreds of millions every year hiring advertising and public relations firms to manage its tattered image here and abroad.)

The exact conversation on the video clearly shows Chevron and its General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate are paying Mastro to lie to U.S. judges.  Mastro simply uses his willingness to cross the ethical line as an advantage in the highly competitive legal marketplace.  Most companies would never buy this approach, but Chevron – a company just as arrogant as Mastro – feels entirely comfortable with the strategy.

Mastro badly needs to restore his reputation after an astounding defeat in favor of the Ecuadorians in front of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  In that case, Mastro was humiliated when he could not answer basic questions from the panel and was laughed at by the spectators and the judges on the bench.

Meanwhile, Donziger – a sole practitioner who works out of his apartment -- is fighting back against Chevron’s intimidation tactics.  He has filed claims against Chevron for lying to U.S. courts and engaging in extortion and fraud to cover up its crimes in Ecuador. See here and here.

In typical fashion, Chevron (led by Mastro) has desperately opposed Donziger’s claims, which completely destroy the company’s fake narrative. Mastro and Chevron CEO John Watson are obviously scared of the truth coming out.  If it did, one would see that the company’s callous approach to Ecuador has resulted in numerous deaths and the wholesale destruction of indigenous communities.
It remains to be seen if the notoriously opinionated Judge Lewis A. Kaplan – who already has been reversed once by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals -- continues to buy into Mastro’s charade or lets Donziger’s claims proceed.

Randy Mastro 

Read More

Chevron Says The Darndest Things

Actually They Are Pretty Shocking

During almost two decades of litigation against Chevron for the massive contamination of the Ecuador rainforest, the oil giant's spokespeople have said some of the darndest things.

When heard or read for the first time, they actually are pretty shocking, leading one to believe the company's executives are completely tone deaf.

They have so bought into their culture of corruption, they don't even recognize how outrageous or how shameful their words are.

Here are just a few for your reading astonishment.

“We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this – companies that have made big investments around the world.”

-- An unnamed Chevron lobbyist about the company's efforts to convince Congress and the U.S. Trade Representative to deny Ecuador U.S. trade preferences in retaliation for the environmental lawsuit, Newsweek

****

“We will fight this until hell freezes over. And then we’ll fight it out on the ice.”

-- Chevron spokesperson Donald Campbell to Global Post (We've got our skates on!)

****

“In the thousands of soil and water samples that we have taken in the Amazon, there has been no detection of any type of toxin that is not naturally occurring in the environment, and that is dangerous to human health or the environment."

"Oil is naturally occurring in the environment. It just depends where it is. I have makeup on, and there's naturally occurring oil on my face. Doesn't mean that I'm going to get sick from it."

-- Chevron lawyer Silvia Garrigo to 60 Minutes that reported the Ecuador court received over 60,000 contaminated soil and water samples, of which most Chevron itself submitted.

****

"We've done inspections. We've done a deep scientific analysis, and that analysis has shown no harmful impacts from the operations. There just aren't any."

-- A Chevron spokesperson to the New York Times.


Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit .
Visit Chevron Toxico.com to find out more. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Either You Did Or You Didn't

Fess Up Chevron

It's a pretty simple question, Chevron. Did you change this document to look like this document so you could hide from the court huge amounts of life-threatening toxins at your old well sites in Ecuador? 

If you did, then it proves what the Ecuadorians have been saying since testing at the sites began in 2004 and 2005 during the long-running Ecuador trial: Chevron manipulated soil and water samples. In other words, the company "cooked" evidence.

Readers of The Chevron Pit might ask, so what? The Ecuadorians won. They defeated Chevron in both U.S. and Ecuador courts, winning an $18 billion judgment to cleanup damages resulting from the company's deliberate poisoning of the rainforest's soil and water.

It matters because Chevron is trying to get an Ecuador-funded taxpayer bailout from an international arbitration tribunal, run by private lawyers. See here for details. In Chevron's twisted view of the world, the Government of Ecuador should pay the $18 billion judgment. 

But the government, of course, is the people. Now that it’s lost in legitimate courts both in the U.S. and in Ecuador, Chevron turns to a body with no authority to have the Ecuadorians pay to fix a horrific mess of gigantic proportions of its own creation.

Only an oil company would think it could get away with this.

The Government of Ecuador has this smoking gun document and will present it to the tribunal, which explains why Chevron is parsing its statements carefully. 

In response, Chevron's lawyers wrote a long letter to the Ecuadorians' lawyers, making all kinds of nasty threats, but they never denied Chevron doctored the document to induce two professors of note to endorse fake testing methods.

In an open joint letter, the two professors, who are on the Chevron dole, also failed to put to rest the charges that Chevron used the altered document to dupe them into endorsing the company’s sampling protocol. 

They are Dr. Pedro J. Alvarez currently the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, and Dr. Douglas Mackay, an adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis.

The smoking gun document shows that Chevron's legal team concocted a plan to guarantee the company would find only "clean" soil samples from dozens of contaminated well sites inspected by the court while "dirty" samples would be sent to a secret laboratory where they would not be disclosed.

But don't take our word for it. Check out a comparison of a "before" and "after" document. You decide. 

Meanwhile, Chevron, a simple yes or no answer will suffice.

Speaking of “cooked” evidence, read this old Chevron Pit to see how Chevron’s fraud in Ecuador is coming into focus. 


Visit Chevron Toxico.com to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network. Follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit.

Read More

Diego Borja: On the Chevron Dole

What’s in the Files of Chevron’s $2.2 Million Man?

Gotta read this article by San Francisco Chronicle’s energy reporter, David Baker, about Chevron’s paying its own self-described “dirty tricks” operative $2.2 million in hush money.

The Chevron Pit believes the oil giant paid Diego Borja so he wouldn’t blow the whistle on its fraudulent sampling protocol at contaminated well sites during the Ecuador trial that recently resulted in an $18 billion judgment against Chevron for massive oil contamination.

Baker writes:

“In the sprawling legal drama surrounding Chevron Corp. in Ecuador, Diego Borja has played one of the strangest roles. In 2009, Borja and a colleague used amateur spy equipment to secretly record two meetings with the Ecuadorian judge presiding over a massive oil-field pollution lawsuit against Chevron…. Questions soon arose about Borja … and his colleague, an American named Wayne Hansen.”

Plenty of questions. Like what’s on Borja’s iPhone?

In a taped conversation with a childhood friend, Borja said if Chevron didn’t pay him handsomely for the videotapes of the judge, he would turn over evidence convicting Chevron in the Ecuador case.

He said he had the goods on Chevron, and some of them were stored on his iPhone.

As Baker discusses, Chevron has spent $1 million in legal fees on Borja alone to prevent the Ecuadorians from obtaining additional discovery from the mysterious Borja files, including data on his iPhone.

A decision in a California federal court on the Ecuadorians’ discovery request is pending.

Borja was a longtime Chevron consultant who lifted soil and water samples during dozens of critical court-supervised inspections during the eight-year trial from 2003 to 2011.

Today he’s unemployed, hanging out in Houston on the Chevron dole while company lawyers and private investigators tend to his every need.

In addition to paying Borja a monthly retainer for doing nothing, Chevron pays his wife as well for a job that no one seems able to describe.

Chevron also picks up rent for their house, their furniture, their car, cell phones and other life necessities.

His buddy, Wayne Hansen, doesn’t have it bad either.

Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News got his hands on some emails between Hansen and Chevron’s private investigators that tell us Hansen is hanging in Peru, enjoying life.

Come on down, Hansen tells one of Chevron’s private investigators in an email. The water is fine, and you can live like a king for $1,200 a month.

Hansen, who is a convicted drug felon, wasn’t so jovial a year or so before when he wrote another Chevron private investigator that no one was taking care of “Wayne;” that Diego had a deal, but not him.

Hansen’s attitude toward Chevron clearly perked up by the time he landed in Peru a few weeks after the Government of Ecuador sought to subpoena him in the United States for his role in taping the judge. (It’s illegal to videotape anyone secretly in Ecuador.)

Ask yourself: How did Hansen, who has no visible means of support, find himself in Peru on the heels of a subpoena?

Why was Hansen communicating with Chevron’s private eyes?

The plot thickens. More is sure to follow.

Read these other interesting article, too, about the exploits of Borja and Hansen: Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, Rebecca Beyer of the Daily Journal and Braden Reddall and Dan Levine of Reuters.


Visit Chevron Toxico.com to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network. Follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit.

Read More

Chevron’s Deceit Exposed In “Legal Misapprehension” Ruling

Less than 24 hours after the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Chevron's case against a group of Ecuadorian indigenous peoples, the oil giant's CEO John Watson accused them of fraud in an analyst call, while trying to explain his $18 billion problem in Ecuador and his $11 billion one in Brazil.

Yet, a close read of the court's opinion reveals Watson’s lawsuit itself was the actual fraud that not only cost the indigenous groups greatly -- both emotionally and financially -- but also delayed a cleanup of the oil company's toxic mess in the Amazon rainforest that is costing lives.

Last week the three-judge panel dismissed in its entirety a lower court ruling that sought to block enforcement of the $18 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron for the deliberate and massive contamination of the Amazon rainforest.

Judge Gerard Lynch wrote that lower court’s "endorsement" of Chevron's "theory of relief" was a "legal misapprehension."

We don't use the word "misapprehension" a lot. Here are a few synonyms, according to Thesaurus.com:

absurdity, blunder, boo-boo, delusion, fallacy, falsehood, goof, howler, screamer, screw-up, sin, transgression, trespass, untruth, wrongdoing

Chevron’s “theory of relief” revolved around twisting a New York state statute used to enforce foreign judgments to make it an affirmative weapon to block the enforcement of foreign judgments anywhere in the world. 
 
The theory was opposed by almost every legal academic the world over, many of whom filed amicus briefs explaining how absurd it was for a U.S. trial court judge to think he could dictate to judges around the world how they should rule on the enforceability of a foreign country's judgment. See here and here.

Chevron sold off its holdings in Ecuador in anticipation of an adverse judgment in that country, forcing the rainforest communities to consider standard collection actions against company assets around the world. 
 
The panel wrote that the Recognition Act "nowhere authorizes a court to declare a foreign judgment unenforceable on the preemptive suit of a putative judgment-debtor (Chevron) .... (the act) and the common law principles it encapsulates are motivated by an interest to provide for the enforcement of foreign judgments, not to prevent them." (Emphasis added.)
 
So, Chevron was allowed to drag the Ecuadorians, their country, and their courts threw the mud for almost a year due to a legal "boo-boo" and a "goof".
 
The appellate panel also wrote that concerns about jurisdictional mutual respect among countries become "far graver" when "a court in one country attempts to preclude the courts of every other nation from ever considering the effect of that foreign judgment .....
 
"In such an instance the court risks disrespecting the legal system not only of the court in which the judgment was issued, but also of those other countries, who are inherently assumed insufficiently trustworthy to recognize what is asserted to be the extreme incapacity of the legal system from which the judgment emanates."
 
The lower court, the panel wrote, did not address the legal rules that would "govern enforceability of an Ecuadorian judgment under the laws of France, Russia, Brazil, Singapore, Saudi Arabia or any of the scores of countries, with widely varying legal systems, in which the plaintiffs might undertake to enforce their judgment."

That's some humbling stuff for Chevron and its theory of relief.


Visit Chevron Toxico.com to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Gibson Dunn: Litigation Disaster of the Year Award

Can We Get A Re-Count?

So much for Gibson Dunn's Litigation Firm of the Year Award, recently bestowed on it by the legal publication, American Lawyer.

If ever there was a reason for a re-count, it's now.

In a critical ruling yesterday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals seriously dissed Chevron's law firm Gibson Dunn and specifically its lead partner on the Ecuador case, Randy Mastro, in its outright dismissal of a lower court ruling that sought to block enforcement of an $18 billion Ecuador judgment against the oil giant for massive contamination in the Amazon rainforest.

In selecting Gibson Dunn as its Litigation Firm of the Year, the highly-conflicted American Lawyer described Mastro as .... well, a maestro of legal strategy.

(American Lawyer covers the legal fight between Chevron and the Ecuadorians yet, at the same time, worships at the Gibson Dunn altar -- and its advertising budget.)

Gibson Dunn itself brags openly about its ability to "change" laws so its huge corporate clients can run amuck in developing countries, much like Chevron did in Ecuador. Read all about it at Paul Paz y Mino's great Huffington Post blog here.

But the 2nd Circuit decision painted a much different picture than the one American Lawyer sketches regularly for its legal audience.

Despite Mastro's arguments to the contrary, the three judges said the lower court did not have the authority to “dictate to the entire world which judgments are entitled to respect and which countries’ courts are to be treated as international pariahs."

Ouch, Randy.

And, there's more:

“It is a particularly weighty matter for a court in one country to declare that another country’s legal system is so corrupt or unfair that its judgments are entitled to no respect from the courts of other nations. In such an instance, the court risks disrespecting the legal system not only of the country in which the judgment was issued, but also of other countries, who are inherently assumed insufficiently trustworthy to recognize what is asserted to be the extreme incapacity of the legal system from which the judgment emanates.”

Double ouch.

Now maybe you're thinking The Chevron Pit is being too catty about Mastro's run of bad decisions -- there have been four in all. See here.

But Randy Mastro is the lawyer who stood before dozens of U.S. courts and called the victims of his client's misconduct in Ecuador "criminals," "con men," and "extortionists" guilty of atrocities worse than any the "Mafia mobsters" have committed.

So excuse us for pointing out the obvious: Gibson Dunn lost the argument. One judge, one court, one law firm cannot sit in judgment of another sovereign country's judiciary, especially since Chevron wanted the trial there in the first place.

One day the real story about Chevron in Ecuador will be told, and it will be abundantly clear the only fraud committed in the context of this historical and important lawsuit was Chevron's.

Read the judgment here.

Randy Mastro

Visit Chevron Toxico.com to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Chevron's Fraud On Public Display In U.S. Courts

Oil Giant's Unclean Hands Soil Its Image

Chevron's fraudulent conduct during the Ecuador trial for massive oil contamination is on public display for all to see in recently-released U.S. court documents.

They reveal that Chevron has paid its "dirty tricks" operative Diego Borja $2.2 million in retainer fees, living expenses, income taxes and legal fees.

They also reveal that Borja was one of several testers at contaminated well sites who manipulated the soil and water samples to Chevron's advantage before submitting them to the court as evidence.

Here's some background for those of you new to the Borja story.

In 2009 Borja, along with his mysterious partner Wayne Hansen, secretly videotaped a judge in a failed effort to derail the trial that charged Chevron with deliberately contaminating the rainforest and resulted in an $18 billion judgment against the company.

Chevron whisked Borja and his family out of Ecuador and into the U.S. after Borja turned over the tapes to Chevron. Later, though, Borja threatened to turn evidence against Chevron if he was not paid handsomely for them.

Since that revelation, the Borjas have been practically under house arrest in Houston, but the money ain't shabby so maybe they don't mind. See court documents here.

Chevron has picked up their rent, the car payments and the costs for a washer, dryer, and all their furniture. Both Borjas get retainer checks every month. The wife has a job with Chevron but nobody seems to know what she does exactly. Borja is unemployed.

Why is this a problem? Borja is likely to be a witness in pending litigation and hearings about the $18 billion judgment. Will Borja bite the hand that feeds him? We doubt it, and that's exactly the Chevron plan.

We hope the news media won't let Chevron get away with it. Hats are off to the reporters who have taken the time to peruse these documents.

See articles by Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News, Rebecca Beyer of the Daily Journal and Braden Reddall and Dan Levine of Reuters.

Sheppard recently revealed a Chevron document that directed Chevron employees or consultants on how to test for contamination at the well sites in Ecuador. Bottom line: prior to the official testing day, go and figure out where the clean spots are; test far away and uphill from the unlined pits full of pure crude; any "dirty" samples you find, send them, not to the court, but a secret lab. Read more here.

Klasfeld got his hands on some eye-popping emails, after Chevron mistakenly sent them to him, that confirmed the oil giant had “cut a deal” with its most infamous contamination tester -- none other than Diego Borja. He also reported on an email that revealed Hansen, an American citizen, is living large in Peru. In another email, Hansen thanked a Chevron private investigator for his help, encouraging the PI to join him in Peru where one could "live like a king" for $1,200 a month. See here. Care to speculate how Hansen ended up in Peru? Hint: He landed there only a few weeks after he was subpoenaed by the Government of Ecuador about the secret tapes he made with Borja. He basically escaped the U.S. before the Government of Ecuador could depose him for questioning.

Beyer quoted a law professor at Pennsylvania State University questioning the ethics and legality of Chevron's payments to Borja as a potential witness.

Reddall and Levine reported on Borja's statements, recorded by a childhood friend, that Chevron had "cooked" evidence in the trial and that he would turn evidence against Chevron if he wasn't paid for the tapes.


Visit ChevronToxico to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Chevron Defeated For Third Time In US Courts!

Ecuadorians One Step Closer To Justice

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has refused Chevron again, denying its motion to block enforcement of the $18 billion judgment in Ecuador. This is the third consecutive legal setback for Chevron. Here's the statement from the Ecuadorians, who against all odds have defeated the oil giant and its 39 law firms and 500 lawyers fighting five impoverished indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest.

"The Ecuadorian communities affected by Chevron's contamination are one step closer to justice as a result of today's ruling. For almost two decades, Chevron has stood in the way of a comprehensive cleanup of billions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste water it deliberately dumped into the pristine rainforest. Thousands of people have died or suffered as the oil giant and its legions of lawyers have fought to distract attention from the overwhelming evidence against the company.

"Now a U.S. appellate court has refused to grant Chevron relief from blocking the $18 billion judgment of an Ecuadorian court that it should pay for a clean-up.  With its promise to fight the Ecuadorians until hell freezes over, Chevron reveals its callous disregard for the rule of law and the humanity of indigenous groups.

"Chevron's legal options to evade the Ecuador judgment continue to narrow.  Chevron's shareholders must now understand that the company's management team is putting their interests at great risk due to the company's bungling of the Ecuador litigation."

In September, a federal appellate panel blocked Chevron's attempt to seek an unprecedented worldwide injunction blocking enforcement.  A federal district recently denied Chevron's illegal attempt to freeze the assets of the plaintiffs.  Chevron's latest attempt to lift an injunction blocking enforcement also has been denied. These defeats follow a January 3rd appellate court ruling in Ecuador confirming the validity of the trial court judgment.

Visit ChevronToxico to find out more. Become a follower of The Chevron Pit. Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

Read More

Chevron Tells Another Whopper To U.S. Appellate Court

For the past two years Chevron has been trying to get U.S. judges to dictate to Ecuadorian judges all that is wrong with Ecuador's judiciary. In the process, Chevron has told so many lies it's impossible to keep up with them.

But, here's one that screams for attention.

On September 16th, 2011, Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn responded to a question posed by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals about the company's previous efforts to convince an arbitration tribunal at The Hague to stop enforcement of the Ecuador court's $18 billion judgment against it (a much longer story). Here's what he said:

"I want to—I do want to be super clear about this. We have not attempted, and we will not attempt, to ask the ... tribunal to stop entry of a judgment. We do intend to fight enforcement, but we—and we do intend to fight in Lago Agrio against entry of a judgment, but we have not and we will not, if I left any doubt about it, ask the ... tribunal to stop entry of a judgment in Lago Agrio."

On January 3rd, 2012, the day the Ecuador appellate court upheld the $18 billion judgment, Chevron lawyer R. Doak Bishop of King & Spalding wrote to the arbitration tribunal, once again requesting help in stopping enforcement:

"Time is now of the essence to ensure that the Republic takes measures to prevent enforcement of the fraudulent Judgment... (Chevron) request(s) that the Republic of Ecuador inform the Tribunal...of the steps that it intends to take to ... prevent the Lago Agrio Judgment from becoming enforceable."

One assumes Mastro thinks that asking the tribunal to ask the Republic of Ecuador to stop the enforcement gives him a passing grade on the lie detector test.

We anticipate Mastro will be in front of the Second Circuit again very soon, explaining the distinction and arguing why three U.S. appellate court judges have jurisdiction over an Ecuadorian court -- in a super clear way.

Maybe then he can find the doubt he left behind.

Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro

Read More