tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61522551727931490482024-03-18T22:59:22.703-04:00The Chevron PitA blog maintained by the team working to hold
oil giant Chevron accountable for its human rights
and environmental abuses in EcuadorLeif Utnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17931487242638720443noreply@blogger.comBlogger479125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-23950228842981414912019-03-12T18:13:00.000-04:002019-03-12T18:13:09.452-04:00Prominent Lawyers Rally To Support Steven Donziger's Right To Expose Chevron's Witness Bribery and FraudSeveral prominent U.S. lawyers, including First Amendment scholar Martin Garbus and Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, are supporting human rights attorney Steven Donziger in his demand to present evidence that Chevron used fraud to try to strip him of his law license.<br />
<br />
Chevron used witness bribery and other false evidence to lobby for Donziger to be suspended on an interim basis without a hearing after he led Indigenous groups in Ecuador to a landmark court victory over the company. (For background, see this <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">criminal referral letter</a> of Chevron and its attorneys to the U.S. Department of Justice.) Four layers of courts in Ecuador, and 16 appellate judges total, have affirmed the findings against Chevron and rejected the company's fake "fraud" narrative targeting Donziger.<br />
<br />
Donziger is contesting his suspension, but staff attorneys at the New York bar grievance committee -- who have been pressured by company lawyers -- are trying to deny him a hearing where he can present evidence. <br />
<br />
Garbus said the following in defense of Donziger:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify;">“This awful injustice, a dagger in the heart of the Ecuadorian people, is unconstitutional and must be reversed,” he said. “The Ecuadorian people are entitled to the lawyer of their choice, Steven Donziger, who is one of the country’s finest, most decent and most honorable lawyers. Steven’s representation is essential to the Ecuadorian quest for justice and he must be permitted to continue.”</i></blockquote>
The press release about the latest development from the Amazon Defense Coalition, the organization that won the historic pollution judgment against Chevron in Ecuador, is <a href="https://www.makechevroncleanup.com/press-releases/2019/3/12/prominent-lawyers-rally-to-support-steven-donzigers-demand-that-he-be-allowed-to-present-evidence-of-chevron-fraud" target="_blank">here</a> and can be read in full below:<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Prominent Lawyers Rally To
Support Steven Donziger’s Demand That He Be Allowed to Present Evidence of
Chevron Fraud<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Harvard Professor Nesson Says
Evidence Proves Oil Giant “Manufactured A Lie” To Try to Strip Donziger’s Law
License To Retaliate for Winning Pollution Case<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>New York – Three prominent
lawyers have rallied behind the demand of human rights attorney Steven Donziger
that he be allowed to present compelling new evidence that Chevron committed
fraud to try to strip him of his law license as retaliation for helping his
Indigenous clients win a landmark $12 billion pollution judgment in Ecuador.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Under pressure from Chevron
and a U.S. judge who has tried to attack the Ecuador judgment, staff attorneys
at the New York bar grievance office in 2018 designated Donziger “an immediate
threat to the public order” and temporarily suspended his law license despite
the fact 16 appellate judges in Ecuador have affirmed the pollution findings
against Chevron. Donziger had a disciplinary hearing scheduled for December to
challenge that designation, but the bar staff lawyers blocked it – an act that
Donziger and his supporters say violates the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>In a <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2019-03-08-ny-motion-to-reconsider.pdf">legal
motion filed this week</a> before a New York state appellate court, Donziger is
demanding he be able to challenge findings of Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that formed
the basis of his temporary suspension. Kaplan’s finding that the Ecuadorian
judge was promised a payment was based entirely on the testimony of an
admittedly corrupt Chevron witness, Alberto Guerra, after he was paid $2
million by Chevron and coached by its lawyers for a staggering 53 days prior to
taking the stand. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Guerra later <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury">admitted
he had perjured himself</a> under oath while a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told">forensic
analysis proved he lied</a> about a critical issue on which Kaplan based most
of his decision. Yet Donziger was still suspended based on Guerra’s testimony,
which has been rejected by four layers of courts in Ecuador. The Kaplan findings
also have been ignored by Canada’s Supreme Court, which <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/">unanimously
endorsed</a> an enforcement action filed by the Ecuadorians targeting the
company’s assets in that country. Donziger has not had even one client
complaint in 25 years of law practice.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>New York grievance committee staff
attorneys Naomi Goldstein and Jorge Dopico (who oversee attorney licensing in
New York) refused even to interview Donziger after he sent them a <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20170206-Ltr-to-Naomi-Goldstein.pdf">detailed
letter</a> explaining why he believed there was no valid basis to proceed
against him. Donziger and the case against Chevron have the backing of several
major environmental groups (<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41436-Major-Environmental-Groups-Back-Steven-Donziger-in-Battle-With-Chevron-Over-Historic-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment">here</a>),
indigenous leaders (<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40635-Canada-s-National-Indigenous-Federation-Backs-Ecuadorian-Amazon-Communities-in-Lawsuit-to-Hold-Chevron-Accountable-for-Environmental-Damage">here</a>),
and a coalition of civil rights groups (<a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/2019/02/25/the-first-annual-slapp-awards-2018/">here</a>)
who are trying to stop a proliferation of corporate-funded harassment lawsuits.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>First Amendment litigator and
scholar Martin Garbus, who represents Donziger in the bar proceeding, criticized
the attorney grievance office that oversees attorney licensing in New York.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>“This awful injustice, a
dagger in the heart of the Ecuadorian people, is unconstitutional and must be
reversed,” he said. “The Ecuadorian people are entitled to the lawyer of their
choice, Steven Donziger, who is one of the country’s finest, most decent and
most honorable lawyers. Steven’s representation is essential to the Ecuadorian
quest for justice and he must be permitted to continue.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Donziger is also represented
by Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson and Kathleen Mahoney, who teaches at
the University of Calgary Law School and is a prominent human rights advocate
in Canada who played a leading role in helping to settle the landmark
residential schools case in that country. Mahoney has visited Ecuador and met
with Chevron’s victims.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>“I am representing Steven
Donziger because Judge Kaplan’s finding that he is guilty of judicial bribery
is a manufactured lie that not even Kaplan stands behind,” said Nesson, who
taught Donziger when he was a student at Harvard in 1989. “This is not any sort
of basis to take disciplinary action to suspend a lawyer, especially without a
hearing where he is not allowed to challenge the finding. This is patently
unconstitutional.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Donziger also has won the
support of the London-based human rights group Global Witness. Last year,
Global Witness <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/systematic-pursuit-ny-lawyer-steven-donziger-fails-basic-principles-due-process-global-witness-monitor/">released
a statement</a> criticizing the New York bar grievance staff lawyers for
violating Donziger’s due process rights. A separate letter the group sent to
the grievance office seeking an explanation was ignored.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>“It is shocking to note the
similarities between this case, and cases we have observed in a myriad of
Banana Republics around the world, where official harassment of anyone who
threatens the powerful is the norm,” the group wrote.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The court-appointed referee
in Donziger’s disciplinary case, John Horan, had ruled last November that
Donziger could challenge Kaplan’s findings and set December 4 for a hearing.
“It is an open question whether [Donziger] did receive a full and fair hearing
before Judge Kaplan,” Horan found. (The full decision is <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2018-11-08-post-suspension-hearing-decision.pdf">here</a>.)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The Horan ruling prompted
Goldstein and Dopico to rush back to a New York state appellate court to
overturn his decision, essentially shutting down Donziger’s ability to present
evidence challenging the Kaplan findings that were used as the basis for his
temporary suspension four years after they issued.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Chevron has a long history of
trying to bully and silence its adversaries in the case. Two weeks ago, more
than 20 civil rights groups gave Chevron the “Corporate Bully of the Year”
award for its SLAPP-style harassment attacks on Donziger and his Ecuadorian
clients. (See <a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/2019/02/25/the-first-annual-slapp-awards-2018/">here</a>.)
In 2015, Chevron won the lifetime Public Eye Award in Davos for being the worst
corporation for its refusal to clean up the billions of gallons of toxic waste
it dumped in Ecuador, decimating Indigenous groups and <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/news-and-multimedia/2010/1014-chevrons-ecuador-cancer-problem-10-000-people-at-risk">causing
an outbreak of cancer</a> that puts thousands of people at risk.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>After the Ecuador judgment
against Chevron issued in 2011, a Chevron official threatened the Ecuadorian
villagers with a “lifetime of litigation” if they persisted. Another official
admitted that the company’s defense strategy was to “demonize” Donziger. Chevron
lawyers – including Andrea Neuman of the Gibson Dunn firm -- have openly
lobbied for Donziger’s disbarment. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Donziger has written a
criminal <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf">referral
letter</a> to the U.S. Department of Justice outlining fraud and misconduct
committed by the company and its lawyers.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>For more details of the New
York bar grievance committee’s handling of the Donziger case, see <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2019/03/questions-raised-about-ny-bar-grievance.html">here</a>.
For background on Chevron’s and Judge Kaplan’s attacks on Donziger and his
Ecuadorian clients, see <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/16448/chevrons-slapp-suit-against-ecuadorians-corporate-intimidation/">this
article</a> by Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>CONTACT:<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>Karen Hinton (703-798-3109)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-15654828204168678162019-03-06T13:30:00.001-05:002019-03-11T20:12:04.356-04:00Questions Raised About NY Bar Grievance Committee's Mistreatment of Attorney Steven Donziger New York human rights attorney Steven Donziger has long warned that Chevron would engage in a politically-motivated attempt to try to strip him of his law license after it lost the landmark $12 billion Ecuador pollution case. Sadly that prediction may come true given efforts by the oil giant and U.S. judge Lewis A. Kaplan to block the decision of a neutral bar referee who ruled Donziger could present evidence challenging Chevron's fake "fraud" narrative.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; height: auto; margin-left: 1em; max-width: 50%; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgi_spgE3-6QDKnA4tdZT-_mjH_JG-k6veRghakHAZhYDf-Sl8HNiMXR3n2kVWM7tpil1orKVeRjqJpGuRshnPB2kyQwDoP9rlNRvZfg4cfVkcyK1BSU7lgyN_7aF8FBaMi69b-_41m7Y/s320/SRD+head+shot.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgi_spgE3-6QDKnA4tdZT-_mjH_JG-k6veRghakHAZhYDf-Sl8HNiMXR3n2kVWM7tpil1orKVeRjqJpGuRshnPB2kyQwDoP9rlNRvZfg4cfVkcyK1BSU7lgyN_7aF8FBaMi69b-_41m7Y/s320/SRD+head+shot.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Steven R. Donziger, lifelong human rights</i><br />
<i>attorney and advocate for Indigenous peoples</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
London-based Global Witness, a prominent human rights group, has <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/systematic-pursuit-ny-lawyer-steven-donziger-fails-basic-principles-due-process-global-witness-monitor/" target="_blank">issued a statement</a> expressing concern about the deplorable treatment of Donziger by Chevron, Kaplan, and the bar authorities. Recently, a coalition of 20 prominent civil rights groups -- including the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Greenpeace -- <a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/2019/02/25/the-first-annual-slapp-awards-2018/" target="_blank">named Chevron "Corporate Bully of the Year"</a> for its vicious SLAPP-style litigation attacks targeting Donziger and his Ecuadorian clients.<br />
<br />
The facts are disturbing.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; height: auto; margin-right: 1em; max-width: 50%; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrC8FRKwDDQ-mzALRALYIOXo_QVDm8a3bV2H3jicSnRtNuY75sMvq1aiGXe7RDnNGeRsn-sf7KEE74e74AZpGfY2U88OfBonuELWFsaPDhLvB2ynq7SpZoesOWl-N61WyVyRxhpNTC9SJV/s320/Kaplan+trench+coat.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="578" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrC8FRKwDDQ-mzALRALYIOXo_QVDm8a3bV2H3jicSnRtNuY75sMvq1aiGXe7RDnNGeRsn-sf7KEE74e74AZpGfY2U88OfBonuELWFsaPDhLvB2ynq7SpZoesOWl-N61WyVyRxhpNTC9SJV/s320/Kaplan+trench+coat.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>U.S. Judge Kaplan, a former Chevron</i><br />
<i>investor, has been attacking Donziger</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As background, Donziger (<a href="https://www.donzigerlaw.com/" target="_blank">bio and website</a>) is a Harvard Law graduate and classmate of President Obama with not a single client complaint in twenty-five years of law practice. His apparent "mistake" in Chevron's eyes is that for two decades he has been a driving force behind one of the most successful corporate accountability cases ever. The size of the judgment and the financing paradigm of "private capital in service of human rights" represents a major threat to Chevron and a fossil fuel industry which faces trillions of dollars in legacy pollution liabilities around the globe. That's why Chevron <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">has used 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> to deploy maximum overkill to fight Donziger and his clients; the company literally wants to kill off the very idea of the case.<br />
<br />
Four layers of courts in Ecuador -- including the country's Constitutional Court in a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41192-Chevron-Suffers-Major-8-0-Defeat-in-Ecuador-s-Constitutional-Court-Over-Landmark-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">unanimous decision</a> last July -- have affirmed the judgment against Chevron based on 105 technical evidentiary reports and 64,000 chemical sampling results in addition to scores of witness testimony. Not even Chevron denies it caused massive, obscene and carcinogenic pollution as a cost-saving measure. The company does not deny that <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/news-and-multimedia/2010/1014-chevrons-ecuador-cancer-problem-10-000-people-at-risk" target="_blank">an explosion in cancer rates</a> has taken place in areas where it operated hundreds of well sites from 1964 to 1992. Unable to defend on the evidence, Chevron made up its own facts and laundered them through Kaplan's court.<br />
<br />
Chevron lawyers at the Gibson Dunn firm in New York -- led by Randy Mastro and Andrea Neuman -- orchestrated the highly suspect ruling by U.S. judge Kaplan in a civil "racketeering" trial that ended in 2014. Many critics, including prominent appellate lawyer Deepak Gupta, consider this ruling legally flawed and ethically compromised. After denying Donziger a jury and then exhibiting a pronounced pro-Chevron bias throughout the trial, Kaplan found Donziger committed "fraud" based almost entirely on testimony from an admittedly corrupt Ecuadorian witness paid two million dollars by Chevron in violation of federal law. The witness, Alberto Guerra, was coached a staggering 53 days by Chevron lawyers before testifying that Donziger approved a bribe of the trial judge. Guerra later <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">admitted under oath that he repeatedly lied</a> in Kaplan's court.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; height: auto; margin-left: 1em; max-width: 50%; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7DxqfomIRJaq5M1fS4sCcTg-0xqf8oChkth3W3hi5releFjewEl9NTk-73n3S8fRfRI8snq1ROQMqaxn2rw2xstYl8kYRSc-obM-5bBee3IwQscK8pAZ6x9uewT9pqJhXkNd8wT7zn2o/s1600/Mastro+ugly.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="833" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7DxqfomIRJaq5M1fS4sCcTg-0xqf8oChkth3W3hi5releFjewEl9NTk-73n3S8fRfRI8snq1ROQMqaxn2rw2xstYl8kYRSc-obM-5bBee3IwQscK8pAZ6x9uewT9pqJhXkNd8wT7zn2o/s320/Mastro+ugly.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Gibson Dunn's Mastro has</i><br />
<i>made millions helping</i><br />
<i>Chevron target Donziger</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
New York grievance committee staff attorneys Naomi Goldstein and Jorge Dopico are charged with overseeing attorney discipline in Manhattan. Last year, based entirely on the Kaplan decision, the pair sought Donziger's interim suspension <i>without a hearing</i> after absurdly designating him "an immediate threat to the public order" based on his work holding Chevron accountable. They concocted this Kafkaesque designation after refusing even to interview Donziger or any of the numerous witnesses available who can challenge Kaplan's findings and expose Chevron's criminal misconduct. (For more on Chevron's intimidation model, see <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/16448/chevrons-slapp-suit-against-ecuadorians-corporate-intimidation/" target="_blank">this excellent article</a> by Greenpeace's Weyler.)<br />
<br />
Consider these details of how the NY bar grievance lawyers have treated Donziger since Kaplan and his colleagues "referred" him for disciplinary action in late 2016, precisely at the time the enforcement action against Chevron in Canada was advancing in Canadian courts:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>In February 2017, Donziger responded to his referral with a <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20170206-Ltr-to-Naomi-Goldstein.pdf" target="_blank">detailed letter</a> in which he explained the absolute lack of basis to move against him. He offered to sit for an interview and otherwise fully cooperate. Goldstein and Dopico ignored the letter.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Several months later, Goldstein and Dopico went to court to petition for Donziger's designation as "an immediate threat to the public order" based on the disputed Kaplan findings that had issued <i>four years earlier</i>. Donziger was provided no prior notice.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Goldstein and Dopico targeted Donziger after he publicly challenged the evidence underlying the Kaplan RICO decision. Donziger called attention to the many due process problems with Kaplan's trial, including the suspicious and still secret million-dollar Chevron payments to a Special Master appointed by the judge who is a personal friend (see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40738-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Approved-Secret-Chevron-Payments-to-Court-Official-Who-Swayed-RICO-Case-for-Company" target="_blank">here</a>). Donziger also published a detailed and powerful <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">33-page rebuttal</a> exposing Chevron's fraud.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As Donziger and others voiced criticism of Kaplan, suddenly a bar referral letter to Dopico suggesting Donziger's immediate suspension was sent by several of the judge's colleagues on the federal bench. The letter was clearly misleading and injudicious. It failed to mention critical evidence undermining the credibility of Kaplan's decision, including the exorbitant Chevron witness payments. It ignored the fact four courts and 16 judges in Ecuador had rejected Kaplan's findings and that Canada's Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the Ecuadorians.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The court-appointed referee designated to oversee Donziger's bar hearing, John Horan, recently ruled (see <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2018-11-08-post-suspension-hearing-decision.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>) that due process requires that the advocate be allowed to present evidence to challenge Kaplan's findings and Chevron's fake "fraud" narrative. Horan suggests Kaplan did not provide Donziger a "full and fair" hearing in the prior case. He scheduled a hearing for early December for Donziger to present evidence.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Rather than take part in a hearing before their own referee and respond to Donziger's evidence, Dopico and Goldstein rushed back to a New York appellate court to stay the hearing that would finally have allowed Donziger his day in court. They argued that Kaplan had already "decided" the fact issues back in 2014 and that Donziger should not be allowed to present any evidence other than testimony related to his character. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A five-judge panel from a New York State appellate court could have ordered the hearing to proceed, but instead (in a one-paragraph order) appeared to robotically rubber-stamp the request to block the fact-based proceeding regarding Donziger's law license. The five judges on the panel were John H. Sweeny, Jr.; Dianne T. Renwick; Rosalyn H. Richter; Sallie Manzanet-Daniels; and Marcy L. Kahn. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Obviously embarrassed to be doing Chevron's dirty work, Dopico and Goldstein have worked overtime to prevent public scrutiny of their trampling of Donziger's due process rights. The pair have repeatedly tried to block Donziger from opening any hearing (should one actually happen) to the public and to journalists, even though he has waived his right to confidentiality as a way to shine some light on the process.</li>
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The language in Horan's ruling suggests why Kaplan and the Chevron lawyers are on edge. Horan concluded that Kaplan "created a criminal indictment" but "in the guise of civil RICO proceedings" and then found facts without a jury by a "preponderance of the evidence" standard rather than a normal "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Horan added: "it is open to question... whether [Donziger] did receive a full and fair hearing before Judge Kaplan..." </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of many toxic pits left by Chevron</i><br />
<i>in the Ecuadorian Amazon</i></td></tr>
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Even though Chevron and Kaplan have tried their best to knock Donziger off the case, the strategy is not working. The success of the case has won Donziger and his Ecuadorian clients high praise from major environmental and Indigenous leaders the world over. Supporters include Phil Fontaine, the former National Chief of Canada; Rafael Pandam, the President of the Amazon Parliament of Ecuador; and Atossa Soltani, the founder of Amazon Watch. First Amendment Scholar Martin Garbus, Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, and Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler have all backed Donziger and gone after Chevron. Weyler accused the company of committing "ecological crimes" in Ecuador.</div>
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Prominent San Francisco-based trial lawyer John Keker (who represented Donziger) called the Kaplan proceeding a "Dickensian farce" designed to inflict harm on Donziger. Kaplan's problematic findings have been largely ignored in Canada, where <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">the Supreme Court unanimously backed the enforcement action</a> against Chevron. Sixteen judges in Ecuador have rejected his conclusions. But in New York, the Kaplan findings are being exalted by the bar authorities to try to deny Donziger a hearing where the truth can be revealed.<br />
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Further details of that truth are outlined in this <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">stunning letter</a> by Donziger to the U.S. Department of Justice. We might add that the Gibson Dunn firm to whom Chevron has paid hundreds of millions of dollars has a history of engaging in "legal thuggery" and the fabrication of evidence on behalf of its scandal-plagued wealthy clients. (See <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) The High Court of London recently disbarred one lawyer at the firm for trying to frame an enemy of one his clients, the President of the African nation of Djibouti. No offense to the many fine lawyers at Gibson Dunn, but this willingness to cross the ethical line is part of the "service" some in the firm's litigation department sell to wealthy corporations enmeshed in scandal.<br />
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Also relevant is the long history in the United States of politically-motivated bar discipline targeting lawyers who challenge entrenched interests, as documented <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&context=law_lawreview" target="_blank">in this article</a>. The New York judiciary's disrespect for Donziger appears to fit well within this tradition. The human rights NGO Global Witness likened Donziger's mistreatment to what the group usually sees in repressive regimes like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey (see <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/systematic-pursuit-ny-lawyer-steven-donziger-fails-basic-principles-due-process-global-witness-monitor/" target="_blank">here</a>). "It is shocking to note the similarities ... between this case, and cases we have observed in a myriad of Banana Republics around the world, where official harassment of anyone who threatens the powerful is the norm," the <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/systematic-pursuit-ny-lawyer-steven-donziger-fails-basic-principles-due-process-global-witness-monitor/" target="_blank">group wrote</a>.</div>
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Donziger is not a threat to the public order. He <i>is </i>a threat to Chevron's environmental crimes and Judge Kaplan's credibility as an unbiased arbiter of the facts. Attorney Donziger's license must be restored and he should be allowed to challenge Kaplan's findings in a public setting. Anything less will be a huge stain on the reputation of the New York judiciary.<br />
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Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-65477851927469986302019-03-01T12:55:00.001-05:002019-03-01T13:51:17.218-05:00Amazon Leaders Condemn Chevron For Trying to Orchestrate Another Sham "Remediation" In EcuadorLeaders of Indigenous peoples and farmer communities in Ecuador this week called out Chevron for trying to orchestrate yet another sham remediation of its environmental contamination on their ancestral lands. The purpose of the company's latest maneuver is to try to evade its $12 billion environmental judgment, currently being enforced in Canada and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41079-Chevron-Shareholders-Slam-CEO-Mike-Wirth-Over-12B-Ecuador-Pollution-Disaster-At-Annual-Meeting" target="_blank">the source of major consternation among company shareholders</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-exf7DcfIKZaupuhRQtIS3IaSb_U1BvmVGNJUV0OlOOAUn2K6VCcRfQNTsJbzNB3YprmS0Llq5ImQlyVHLgEDX-SOIZJUyh6wGLB6RwOEbXv76poP9JIjJeaundo4l0QBM64NGB1DQs7K/s1600/Ugly+waste+pit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-exf7DcfIKZaupuhRQtIS3IaSb_U1BvmVGNJUV0OlOOAUn2K6VCcRfQNTsJbzNB3YprmS0Llq5ImQlyVHLgEDX-SOIZJUyh6wGLB6RwOEbXv76poP9JIjJeaundo4l0QBM64NGB1DQs7K/s320/Ugly+waste+pit.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">This picture of a Chevron pit was taken after its "remediation"</i></td></tr>
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The judgment against Chevron -- confirmed by 16 separate appellate judges in Ecuador -- covers what might be the worst oil-related damage on earth. Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest when it operated in the country from 1964 to 1992. The dumping decimated Indigenous cultures and caused an outbreak of cancer that has killed thousands.<br />
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While it is no surprise Chevron's operatives would pressure Ecuador's government to do a clean-up of its damage, the reality is the government's $10 million fund would cover less than 1% of the cost of a real clean-up. Chevron also has the little problem that an earlier "remediation" from 1995-1998 has been widely condemned as a fraud by Ecuadorian courts. That was a major scam attempt. Chevron spent only $40 million at the time, or far less than 1% of the cost of an actual clean-up. (To understand details of Chevron's earlier sham clean-up, see <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/20080822-phony-cleanup-memo.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/news-and-multimedia/2011/0302-press-kit-for-texacos-sham-remediation" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
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The Amazon Defense Coalition -- the group that brought the case against Chevron and is the beneficiary of the judgment on behalf of 30,000 affected peoples -- issued this press release yesterday about the new remediation attempt by Chevron:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Amazon Leaders Condemn Chevron and Ecuador Government For Setting Up "Pathetic" Clean-Up Fund To Cover Costs of $12b Environmental Disaster</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Sham Remediation by Chevron and Ecuador Government in 1990s Does Not Inspire Confidence of Affected Communities, FDA Says</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Quito – Leaders of Ecuador’s Amazon communities this week blasted Chevron and their own government for setting up a paltry clean-up fund of only $10 million to cover massive costs to remediate the oil company’s environmental disaster that various courts have determined will run at least $12 billion and maybe much higher.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">"This new fund is pathetic given the magnitude of the damage and is obviously just the latest attempt by Chevron to duck its clean-up obligations to the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador as imposed by the court system," said Agustin Salazar, the Ecuadorian lawyer for the communities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The government-announced fund – created without any consultation with the communities it is supposed to help -- would not cover even one percent of the actual costs to remediate Chevron’s “Amazon Chernobyl” disaster, as determined by four layers of courts in Ecuador, according to court evidence. Ecuador’s courts found Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste onto Indigenous ancestral lands when it operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992, decimating local cultures and causing an outbreak of cancer that has killed or threatens to kill thousands of people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Most experts consider Chevron’s oil-related disaster to be the worst toxic contamination in the world, with local leaders calling it a “mass industrial poisoning” and one of the worst corporate crimes ever. Chevron has spent at least $2 billion <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" id="LPlnk897315" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">to hire 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> to fight the Indigenous groups.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“While we welcome all help we can get, this so-called clean-up fund seems to be another example of Chevron’s long history of corruption, subterfuge, and greed as well as the weakness of our own government in face of the company’s pressure,” said Rafael Pandam, the President of Ecuador’s Amazon Parliament and member of the Amazon Defense Coalition, the group of communities that won a landmark pollution judgment of $12 billion in 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“At best, this fund will pay for only two of the 1,000 unlined toxic waste pits Chevron left behind that still contaminate our ancestral lands,” he added. “We obviously will continue to enforce the court judgment against Chevron in Canada until the full amount is collected.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">While the Amazon communities pursue Chevron’s assets in Canadian courts, it has been widely reported that the oil company – with the apparent help of the Trump Administration – has been trying to pressure Ecuador President Lenin Moreno to assume the costs of clean-up as a way for Chevron to escape the court-imposed liability. Earlier this week, Ecuador’s Minister of Hydrocarbons, Carlos Perez, announced the $10 million clean-up fund without any prior consultation with the communities and without providing any details.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Under the terms of the Ecuador court judgment against Chevron – which issued in 2011 and was affirmed by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court last July -- any clean-up funds collected from Chevron in Canada or other enforcement jurisdictions will be turned over to the communities and their technical advisors to be used for proper remediation and for the construction of medical centers, the provision of clean water, and the restoration of Indigenous lands and culture. Chevron’s disaster encompasses roughly 400 well and production sites spanning 1,500 sq. miles and will take ten to 20 years to properly remediate, according to experts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Evidence presented in the Ecuador trial found that when Texaco (Chevron’s predecessor company) left Ecuador in 1992, it abandoned roughly 1,000 unlined toxic waste pits with each costing approximately $5 million to remediate. The pits still contaminate groundwater and rivers relied on by the local population for drinking water, leading to high cancer rates and other health problems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Douglas Beltman, a U.S. scientific expert for the affected communities, testified under oath that each of the abandoned Chevron waste pits would be considered a Superfund site under U.S. law. The Ecuador government fund will only cover the costs of two of 1,000 waste pits, according to Beltman’s analysis. “It is clear Chevron treated Ecuador as a trash bin,” Beltman told the U.S. News show <i>60 Minutes</i> in an interview in 2009. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">In a press release put out by the FDA, the organization responded to the announcement of new fund with the following statement:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“The FDA wants to remind people that there exists one responsible party for the contamination in Ecuador’s Amazon and it has a name: the Chevron Corporation... Any announcement of a clean-up fund should base itself in the context of the historic court judgment that we are enforcing in Canada. We will not accept anything less.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The FDA also criticized Chevron for attempting a remediation in the mid-1990s that cost $40 million, or far less than 1% of the amount needed to properly repair the damage. That so-called “clean-up” consisted largely of covering a small percentage of the company’s toxic waste pits with dirt and was widely condemned as a sham. It also only covered 16% of the company’s pits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Also in that earlier Chevron attempt at clean-up, the company used an illegal standard 50 times more lax than typical U.S. standards which made it virtually impossible to fail inspection even though hardly any work was done, according to Beltman’s analysis. Chevron then tried to use its so-called sham “remediation” as a legal basis to dismiss the environmental case, but courts rejected that maneuver.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The same Ecuadorian Ministry that oversaw the earlier sham clean-up in the mid-1990s is now creating the fund even though Chevron is responsible for the damage and the company faces the far larger court judgment, according to the FDA. Enforcement of the $12b judgment against Chevron will continue in Canada, where the Supreme Court of that country backed the Ecuadorians in a unanimous decision that issued in 2015, said Salazar, a lawyer for the organization.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">For more background on Chevron’s earlier “remediation” in Ecuador carried out by Texaco, see this<a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/20080822-phony-cleanup-memo.pdf" id="LPlnk199041" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">summary memo</a> by Beltman of Stratus Consulting and <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/chevrons-sham-remediation_b_6149444.html" id="LPlnk248981" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">this article</a> by Karen Hinton.</span></div>
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Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-14173995346345321282019-02-27T12:43:00.002-05:002019-03-01T13:53:49.303-05:00Chevron Named "Corporate Bully of the Year" For Attacks On Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples and Steven DonzigerChevron's reputation as a major polluter and human rights abuser took another hit this week when it "won" the "Corporate Bully of the Year" award from a coalition of prominent civil rights and environmental groups. This is all on Chevron's CEO Michael Wirth and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate, the architects of the company's scorched earth litigation strategy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Chevron CEO Michael Wirth </i></td></tr>
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Chevron won the award for its vicious litigation attacks against Ecuadorian Indigenous peoples and one of their U.S. lawyers, Steven Donziger. Donziger in 2011 helped his clients win a landmark $12 billion environmental judgment against the company in Ecuador, where Chevron insisted the trial be held. The judgment was affirmed by four courts in Ecuador and 16 appellate judges, including <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41192-Chevron-Suffers-Major-8-0-Defeat-in-Ecuador-s-Constitutional-Court-Over-Landmark-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">by the nation's Constitutional Court last July in a unanimous opinion</a>.<br />
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Chevron under the leadership of Wirth and Pate has proven itself to be a company that does naturally respect the rule of law.<br />
<br />
Since the Ecuador trial court decision issued, Chevron has spent an estimated $2 billion on <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers </a>to attack the Ecuadorian peoples -- primarily through a civil racketeering case in the U.S. based largely on false testimony from an admittedly corrupt company witness <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">paid $2 million to lie in federal court.</a> One Chevron official admitted that the company's main defense to the Ecuador judgment was to "demonize" Donziger, a Harvard Law grad called a man of "Herculean tenacity" by BusinessWeek.<br />
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Background on the "Corporate Bully" award -- granted by a new anti-SLAPP coalition called Protect The Protest -- is <a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/2019/02/25/the-first-annual-slapp-awards-2018/" target="_blank">here</a> and in <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41771-Chevron-Named-Corporate-Bully-of-the-Year-For-Attacks-On-Ecuadorian-Indigenous-Peoples-and-Their-Supporters" target="_blank">this press release</a>. For a deeper appreciation of the unethical and even criminal behavior of Chevron and its lawyers at the Gibson Dunn firm -- including evidence they engaged in fraud and witness bribery -- see this <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">referral letter</a> sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.<br />
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The anti-SLAPP coalition is dedicated to stopping a new corporate playbook pushed by Chevron's law firm Gibson Dunn and other copycat companies to "criminalize" legitimate advocacy that threatens corporate interests. Members of the coalition include Greenpeace, the ACLU, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Earth Rights International, and Amazon Watch. Greenpeace itself has been targeted with two SLAPP lawsuits in recent years.<br />
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In awarding Chevron the "Bully" award, the Protect the Protest coalition concluded the following:<br />
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Chevron's litigation strategy in 2018 followed the same playbook it had been using for years: bully, harass, intimidate... Chevron has only ramped up its bully tactics in what has been described as the "vengeance stage" of its 25-year long legal effort to avoid accountability for oil-spilling in Ecuador. Despite spending an estimated $2 billion to hire 60 law firms and 2,000 law firms to pursue the case, Chevron spent most of 2018 trying to strip away Donziger's license to practice law and bankrupt him through the recovery of attorney fees. More recently, Chevron has issued aggressive and far-reaching subpoenas to pursue third-party critics of the energy giant. This has included Katie Sullivan, a small business owner who volunteered to help fundraise and organize documents for Ecuadorian victims, who testified that she had to personally spend at least $170,000 in legal fees trying to comply with Chevron's subpoena as well as endure Chevron's harassment of her clients.</blockquote>
Katie Sullivan was another victim of a Chevron SLAPP attack designed to silence critics by threatening enormous legal fees and hassle in violation of First Amendment-protected Free Speech. (SLAPP is an academic term that stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbWbRoVkuroxEaRqjH4LJjY4UKSrh__LBEW-fcozRmUE6NvYP9H7s9nXJVvOnpr4M8gCG0AUQfpmS8MUsI7i6Ehv_Aq0AVeJrfHW8Lou4byuligPCRErkGwJURCSpk9RJELis-tSQmzcnI/s1600/R-Hewitt-Pate-Article-201412101726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="616" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbWbRoVkuroxEaRqjH4LJjY4UKSrh__LBEW-fcozRmUE6NvYP9H7s9nXJVvOnpr4M8gCG0AUQfpmS8MUsI7i6Ehv_Aq0AVeJrfHW8Lou4byuligPCRErkGwJURCSpk9RJELis-tSQmzcnI/s320/R-Hewitt-Pate-Article-201412101726.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Chevron General Counsel Hew Pate</i></td></tr>
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Patricio Salazar, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer for the Ecuadorian communities, said Chevron's bully award is "most deserving" given the destruction the company caused in the South American nation. Salazar said: "There is probably no more bullying and abusive company in the world than Chevron when it comes to using the civil justice system to try to intimidate its perceived enemies."<br />
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Remember that Chevron still faces a major enforcement action against its assets in Canada, which are large enough to pay the entirety of the Ecuador judgment. Canada's Supreme Court already has backed the right of the Ecuadorians to pursue that case. That decision last year prompted 36 Chevron institutional shareholders to urge Wirth to explore a settlement rather than face growing financial and reputational risk.<br />
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The real lesson for Wirth and Pate is that while bullying might buy time, it is not a sustainable long-term defense strategy to a legitimate legal case. The strategy is also illegal. Chevron's Board of Directors needs to step up and get the company's CEO and General Counsel under control.<br />
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In the meantime, congratulations to Chevron's top executives. With thousands of Indigenous peoples and farmers dead from cancer in Ecuador from your deliberate toxic dumping, you definitely have earned this miserable award.<br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-57082764972036813202018-12-20T13:19:00.001-05:002018-12-20T13:19:04.657-05:002018 Was Tough Year for Chevron On $12b Ecuador Case; Board Asked To Investigate CEO WirthChevron had a tough year in 2018 as it dug itself an even deeper hole on environmental issues across the globe, most notably on the landmark pollution case where the company faces a $12 billion liability for causing the "Amazon Chernobyl" in Ecuador.<br />
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Chevron's massive expenditures on that litigation -- now up to $3 billion in legal fees <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">to pay 2,000 lawyers</a> -- are intended to try to crush impoverished Ecuadorian Indigenous peoples and farmer communities who won the landmark pollution judgment. Those expenditures are also a telltale sign of the company's increasing anxiety. No matter how you cut it, 2018 was a bad year for Chevron and its pollution profiteers at major law firms who work hard to keep the victorious Ecuadorian communities tied up in court for no good reason.<br />
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First, consider the many setbacks suffered by Chevron CEO Michael Wirth in 2018:<br />
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**Chevron's own shareholders are rebelling over the company's Ecuador liability. Thirty-six institutional shareholders representing $109b in assets wrote a <a href="http://www.newground.net/Chevron-Investor-Letter-2018.pdf" target="_blank">stunning letter</a> demanding that the hard-headed Wirth explore a settlement. Two shareholder resolutions criticizing Wirth's mishandling of the Ecuador litigation received overwhelming support at the 2018 annual meeting. (See <a href="https://amazonwatch.org/news/2018/0530-chevron-ceo-challenged-to-change-course-at-shareholder-meetings" target="_blank">here</a> for background.)<br />
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**Civil society is also rebelling against Chevron after it received the ignominious Public Eye Award for being the worst global company. Almost 1 million citizens signed an on-line petition from Avaaz blasting Wirth for failing to comply with the Ecuador judgment. In Canada, 653 <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40635-Canada-s-National-Indigenous-Federation-Backs-Ecuadorian-Amazon-Communities-in-Lawsuit-to-Hold-Chevron-Accountable-for-Environmental-Damage" target="_blank">aboriginal groups signed a protocol</a> with Ecuador's national federation to hold Chevron accountable for its environmental misconduct. Chevron is becoming <i>persona non grata</i> in the Indigenous world. But wait -- some of the world's most valuable oil reserves sit above Indigenous lands!<br />
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**In Canada, Chevron's attempts to shut down the Ecuador judgment enforcement action continue to fail. Canada's Supreme Court has backed the Ecuadorians in a unanimous opinion. Chevron's latest gambit to evade that decision -- to hide its Canadian assets in a wholly-owned 7th-tier subsidiary -- is now before the Canada Supreme Court. Regardless, Chevron faces an embarrassing trial where its star witness Alberto Guerra will face questioning for his lies and corrupt acts and Chevron's American lawyers will be asked about their <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">apparent witness bribery</a>.<br />
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**Chevron also <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2018/10/chevron-appears-to-be-global-tax-cheat.html" target="_blank">faces major tax liabilities</a> in Canada related to billions of dollars of suspicious payments made by the company's Canadian subsidiary to the governments of Nigeria and Indonesia. Chevron's lawyers in Canada, led by Larry Lowenstein, have tried to hide these payments. Chevron's reputation as a global tax cheat extends well beyond Canada to Australia, Argentina, and the Netherlands.<br />
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**Chevron's main defense -- that the Ecuador judgment was obtained thru bribery -- has fallen apart. Not only did that defense depend almost completely on Guerra's lies, but there is credible evidence that Chevron and its lawyers might have <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">engaged in a criminal conspiracy </a>to manufacture evidence as part of a "kill step" marketing strategy being peddled by the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">ethically-challenged Gibson Dunn law firm</a> -- a firm already caught fabricating evidence in another case. Lawyers at Gibson Dunn and Chevron officials face a <a href="https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">criminal referral letter</a> to the U.S. Department of Justice for their apparent misconduct.<br />
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In other parts of the word, Chevron is contending with multiple lawsuits over climate change after Wirth's failure to adjust his business model to mitigate harm to the planet. The company is aggressively fighting crab fishermen in California whose catch has dramatically dropped because of warming waters; has been sued by municipalities over global warming; and has been accused by the Mapuche of polluting their traditional lands in Argentina as part of an earlier corrupt move to kill off an enforcement action of the Ecuador judgment in that country. (See <a href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/resistance-to-chevron-ypf-fracking" target="_blank">here</a>.) That's just the tip of the iceberg for Chevron, as any Google search will disclose.<br />
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Chevron faces increasing resistance from civil society groups for its backward-facing approach to environmental issues. Several such groups have organized to thwart Chevron and other polluters from using the legal system to engage in illegal SLAPP-style attacks on environmental and human rights defenders. Our American friend <a href="https://www.donzigerlaw.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a>, who has fought Chevron for 25 years over the Ecuador pollution, was once sued for $60 billion by Chevron in New York as part of its <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/16448/chevrons-slapp-suit-against-ecuadorians-corporate-intimidation/" target="_blank">corporate intimidation campaign</a>. That was before the company chickened out and dropped all damages claims against Donziger to avoid a jury of impartial fact finders.<br />
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Prominent groups as varied as Amazon Watch, London-based Global Witness, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, the ACLU, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have protested Chevron's attacks against human rights defenders such as Donziger, the driving force behind the Ecuador judgment. Several groups <a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/" target="_blank">have formed a coalition</a> (www.protecttheprotest.org) to safeguard Free Speech in light of Chevron's and Gibson Dunn's assaults on political activity. It doesn't help Chevron that legendary rocker Roger Waters was just in Ecuador's Amazon in a display of solidarity with the people the company poisoned. (See <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1-yf06dhEU&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">here</a> for a television report.)<br />
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After having spent billions to fight the Amazon communities who won in court, Wirth and Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate have a lot to answer for. Chevron shareholders just filed two more resolutions challenging the mismanagement by Wirth and Pate of their funds. This promises another contentious annual meeting next May that will be dominated by talk of Wirth's human rights violations in the Amazon. Chevron is also trying to coax Team Trump (after donating $500,000 to Trump's inauguration) to pressure Ecuador's fragile government to turn against its own citizens and side with the oil company in the litigation, another project destined to fail.<br />
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Wirth also has yet to account for Chevron's Nazi past (via Texaco) as outlined in Adam Hochshild's excellent book, <i>Spain In Our Hearts</i>. The company's board of directors should commission an independent investigation into this issue. While at it, it should also take an independent look at the broader Chevron human rights violations in Ecuador and in the offices of its hired guns at the U.S. law firm Gibson Dunn.<br />
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Oops, that might not happen given that Wirth is Chairman of the Chevron Board <i>and</i> CEO, an antiquated structural relic frowned upon by almost all corporate governance experts.<br />
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When the history of Chevron is written, the company will surely go down as one of the most corrupt and criminal ever to rampage across the globe. Governments owe it to their citizens and to the survival of the planet to cease doing business with this destructive company until it pays what it owes to the peoples it harmed in Ecuador <i>and</i> it demonstrates it can be a responsible corporate citizen.<br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-84000385749869846772018-11-23T21:01:00.001-05:002018-11-24T11:40:26.782-05:00Statement From Ecuadorian Communities About Support From Musician Roger Waters<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>The following is a statement regarding Roger Waters released today from Carmen Cartuche, the President of the Front for Defense of the Amazon (FDA), the grass roots organization in Ecuador that is the beneficiary of the historic environmental judgment against Chevron:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">Rumors that Roger Waters received money to come to Ecuador or that he might profit from the historic litigation are based on lies propagated by Chevron. Roger has generously supported the local Ecuadorian communities in their legal battle with donations just as he has many other social justice movements around the world. Roger has never expected to profit from the affected communities should they collect on their judgment against Chevron.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">The document being circulated by Chevron to supposedly show Roger was entitled to a minuscule percentage of the Ecuador judgment should there be a collection is wholly misleading. The Chevron document reflects what the affected communities aspired to give Roger in exchange for his donation. Roger never asked to be an investor, is not an investor, and will never be an investor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">To be clear, the use by the affected Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador of third-party investor funds to finance their lawsuit against Chevron has allowed us to achieve great success. Many of our supporters around the world have participated in this funding model, which is </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 12pt;">entirely proper and laudable</i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">even though Chevron obviously would much prefer that its victims rely only on “charity” to press their legal claims. The funding model is also a paradigm-shifting breakthrough for the human rights movement. Outside funds in relatively modest amounts have allowed the Ecuadorians to win their case and sustain their campaign against Chevron for 25 years. Without funds provided by investors and donors, Chevron’s victims would never stand a chance against the estimated $2 billion the company has spent on its army of 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">The funding model used by the affected communities in Ecuador has enabled a historically unprecedented level of accountability for corporate criminality and fraud committed by a major oil company, Chevron. The model is one of many that human rights advocates can use to increase accountability for corporate wrongdoers. We also believe the model we use can enhance access to the justice system for all who are victimized by private companies that perpetrate human rights abuses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">We again thank Roger Waters and all donors and investors for their continued support of our campaign in the face of Chevron’s unethical and illegal attacks on our right to seek just compensation for the company’s environmental pollution.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">Carmen Cartuche</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">President, Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia (Front for the Defense of the Amazon)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">November 23, 2018</span>Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-33021190449006475462018-10-11T13:21:00.001-04:002018-10-11T16:50:34.754-04:00Chevron Appears To Be A Global Tax Cheat As Well As Serial Human Rights AbuserIn the battle between Indigenous peoples and Chevron over the company's massive toxic dumping in Ecuador, one thing has become increasingly clear: the human rights abuses committed by the company in the Amazon are not unique. They are in fact indicative of an internal culture that clearly flouts the law as part of the company's customary business practices. And the victims of this culture extend way beyond the people of Ecuador.<br />
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Chevron's history of toxic dumping in Ecuador and its subterfuge to avoid paying damages is widely known and undisputed. The company's global tax avoidance practices -- tax cheating -- are less well known but are becoming more evident. Think of that New York Times story on the Trump family's tax fraud, and one can quickly understand what Chevron is doing on a global scale.<br />
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Consider:<br />
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<b>Australia</b>: Chevron maintains its largest foreign investment in the Gorgon natural gas project off the northern coast of Australia. It sold Australians on the promise that it would pay billions annually in tax revenue to the country so it could build things like hospitals and schools. Instead, Chevron for years paid zero taxes in Australia despite making huge profits. It did this by having its Australian subsidiary pay back a high-interest 9% loan provided by a Chevron subsidiary in Delaware in what is clearly an illegal "related company" transaction designed to evade tax laws.<br />
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The loan repayments "wiped out" all Chevron profits in Australia and the company never paid taxes. Chevron ended up being caught and authorities forced it to pay a massive tax bill; company officials who orchestrated the scheme are the same officials who have refused to pay the Ecuador judgment after dumping billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon. They were not personally prosecuted, fined, or punished. See <a href="http://theconversation.com/chevron-a-game-changer-for-multinational-tax-avoiders-76587" target="_blank">here</a> for part of the background.<br />
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<b>Canada</b>: Chevron pays almost no tax in Canada despite generating billions in revenue from its wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary, Chevron Canada. In the course of the judgment enforcement action brought by Ecuadorians in Canada to force compliance with the $12 billion Ecuador pollution judgment, we learned that Chevron Canada pays billions each year to the governments of Indonesia and Nigeria in an obvious tax-avoidance scheme orchestrated at Chevron headquarters in California.<br />
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That is, Chevron uses its Canadian subsidiary as a vehicle to lower its tax bill in a country where it maintains an estimated $25 billion in assets. Other oil companies also see Canada as a major tax haven, but Chevron takes the cake in terms of taking advantage of the country's tax laws. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/oct/26/revealed-oil-giants-pay-billions-less-tax-in-canada-than-abroad" target="_blank">This article</a> from The Guardian captures part of the problem.<br />
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<b>Netherlands</b>: A bombshell complaint filed days ago by several unions documented how Chevron uses the Netherlands to funnel billions of dollars of profits made through its subsidiaries in other countries (among them Argentina, Venezuela and Nigeria) to lower its tax rates in the places it actually operates. Although we don't have the complaint, we do have t<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-tax-chevron/unions-accuse-chevron-of-massive-tax-avoidance-via-the-netherlands-idUSKCN1MJ1C3" target="_blank">his Reuters story</a> that documents what's in it. The article explains how Chevron is once again taking the lead in using the laws of an unsuspecting country to screw populations throughout the world who stand to benefit from the proper payment of taxes in the locales where production actually takes place.<br />
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Corporations like Chevron often claim that "tax avoidance" is perfectly legal. While we won't grant the company that much credit, "tax avoidance" seems to have migrated into the realm of "tax cheating" when it comes to Chevron's business practices in Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands.<br />
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In our experience, this is par for the course for Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate. This duo and their lawyers from the U.S. firm Gibson Dunn have paid <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">bribes to witnesses and created fraudulent evidence</a> to rip off the Indigenous peoples and farmer communities of Ecuador whose cultures Chevron has decimated. Speaking of cultures, Chevron's is clearly rotten.<br />
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We will continue to follow the Chevron "tax cheat" story as information emerges.Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-49801640104801083002018-09-08T12:13:00.001-04:002018-09-14T12:08:19.133-04:00Here Are The Three Secret Trade Arbitrators Undermining Indigenous Groups In Ecuador's Rainforest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtdR9rp2zeeP1oQeoLRCFph1GQ1xfLDozGbeFxN46xrxO4AQVEn4hzW3W1lskT9D8aGFWozqs8gOwM6OseJyPNDGpCNCYLxyPUG_ppf1bVkGxh_TZ8TKkm_AviJiKcg7ocY_iXlnVlg/s1600/Chevron+arbitrators.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtdR9rp2zeeP1oQeoLRCFph1GQ1xfLDozGbeFxN46xrxO4AQVEn4hzW3W1lskT9D8aGFWozqs8gOwM6OseJyPNDGpCNCYLxyPUG_ppf1bVkGxh_TZ8TKkm_AviJiKcg7ocY_iXlnVlg/s1600/Chevron+arbitrators.png" /></a></div>
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The three men above are being used by Chevron as a secret kangaroo court to try to undermine enforcement of the landmark $12 billion Ecuador pollution judgment resulting from the company's deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into the rainforest. This so-called "court" is widely seen as a joke: it uses arbitrators who actually are private lawyers who charge commercial rates and reap enormous fees. They meet in secret and in this case repeatedly refused to let the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador participate or even attend as observers.<br />
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The discomfiting scenario of a private court for corporations might be the future look of "justice" in a world where the Koch Brothers and their allies wish to hide the gruesome details of corporate wrongdoing and corruption. It is also where outcomes easily can be rigged against human rights victims, as Chevron's lawyers tried to do here. The proceedings were held mostly in secure conference rooms of luxury hotels. (See <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41282-Report-Shows-Chevron-Lawyers-at-Gibson-Dunn-Falsified-Evidence-to-Target-Steven-Donziger-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">here</a> for how Chevron's law firm Gibson Dunn uses fraud to attack the Ecuador judgment; <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41336-Ecuador-Indigenous-Leaders-Criticize-Secret-Trade-Arbitrators-For-Interference-With-12b-Chevron-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">here</a> for a blistering critique of the secret trade court by Ecuadorian community leader Carmen Cartuche and two lawyers for the affected communities.)<br />
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In the Chevron case against Ecuador's government, the names of the conflict-ridden trade arbitrators who work faithfully in service of the corporate class are Grigera Noan, Vaughn Lowe, and V.V. Veeder. Each made an estimated $25 million by charging standard commercial rates of $1,000 per hour to oversee Chevron's secret arbitration, which began in 2009 and is ongoing. These men for years have refused to disclose the exact amount of riches they have reaped by undermining the claims of the rainforest communities of Ecuador.<br />
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In short, these white males enriched themselves at the expense of the Indigenous peoples Chevron <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">decimated with cancer</a> as a result of its systematic and deliberate toxic dumping of 4 million gallons of produced waste water daily into rivers and streams. Notably, the trio have ignored <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-02-08-ngo-letter.pdf" target="_blank">demands by several civil society groups</a> to disclose details of their inner workings. U.S. lawyers Max Gitter (<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40738-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Approved-Secret-Chevron-Payments-to-Court-Official-Who-Swayed-RICO-Case-for-Company" target="_blank">see here</a>), R. Hewitt Pate (see <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0424-chevron-lawyer-receives-millions-for-losing-18-billion-ecuador-lawsuit" target="_blank">here</a>) of Chevron, and Randy Mastro (<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-paz-y-mino/chevron-ecuador-oil_b_1180208.html" target="_blank">here</a>) and Ted Boutrous of the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">ethically-challenged Gibson Dunn firm</a> are also on the growing list of those who have profited personally courtesy of Chevron's big money assault on the rainforest communities.<br />
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This week the arbitrators predictably carried out one of the final acts of their solemn duty to try to deliver impunity to a major corporate human rights violator. They purported to "rule" -- in contradiction to the robust findings of four layers of <i>public courts</i> in Ecuador -- that the judgment against Chevron achieved after two decades of litigation should be nullified. They relied on a fake "fraud" narrative Chevron concocted that was based largely on the testimony of an admittedly corrupt witness (Alberto Guerra) paid $2 million by the company <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38421-Chevron-s-Star-Witness-in-Retaliatory-RICO-Case-Recants-Accusations-Against-Ecuadorians-and-Their-Counsel" target="_blank">to lie in open court</a>. Chevron's lawyers coached Guerra for 53 consecutive days before he told his made-up story; Guerra later admitted under oath that he had lied while a f<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37943-Chevron-s-Main-Defense-Unraveling-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-Says-New-Forensic-Report-" target="_blank">orensic report proved he lied</a>.<br />
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Most importantly, they refused to hear from the Indigenous peoples against whom this judgment is ultimately directed. No wonder they wanted to keep it secret. Could any "court" process be any more illegitimate than this one?<br />
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Guerra's testimony -- which resulted in a <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">criminal referral letter</a> of Chevron and its lawyers to the U.S. Department of Justice -- utterly destroyed Chevron's claim about the supposed "ghostwriting" of the judgment. "Money talks, but gold screams," Guerra had told Chevron's lawyers in 2011 as he demanded exorbitant and illegal fees for his witness testimony. Guerra is still on Chevron's payroll years later, living in a luxurious house near Chicago. We estimate he's made at least $5 million from the company after his last salary in Ecuador was $6,000 annually. Chevron even pays his income taxes. But the arbitrators in their decision almost completely ignored these credibility problems.<br />
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The three lawyer-arbitrators tried to overturn 17 separate appellate judges in Ecuador who affirmed the pollution judgment based largely on 105 technical evidentiary reports and reams of witness testimony. Ecuador's Constitutional Court validated Chevron's responsibility for its toxic dumping in a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41192-Chevron-Suffers-Major-8-0-Defeat-in-Ecuador-s-Constitutional-Court-Over-Landmark-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">unanimous decision</a> issued in July of this year. But the secret arbitrators have also done the world a favor of sorts. Their ruling vividly illustrates why the public needs to get rid of these anti-democratic, pro-corporate trade courts once and for all. No trade treaty should ever again have a provision for allowing private arbitration for the corporate class.<br />
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The double standard of the private trade court concept is amazing, if not patently racist as applied to the current situation in Ecuador. Chevron loses a case in a regular public court where it had accepted jurisdiction and then gets another bite at the apple in a Kafkaesque proceeding where the opposing party -- in this case Indigenous peoples and impoverished farmer communities who have the most important interest in the dispute -- can't participate.<br />
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The morally bankrupt trade process uses indecipherable standards rather than actual laws. Until Chevron came along, no trade arbitration panel in history had tried to "reverse" a ruling by the highest court of a sovereign nation involving a litigation between private parties. To do so is an open assault on Ecuador's sovereignty and its independent judiciary and is illegal as a matter of international law, according to dozens of scholars. For this reason and others, we believe the latest trade court ruling is unenforceable and Chevron will look foolish if it tries to use it to block the ongoing judgment enforcement actions to seize company assets in Canada. (<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40597-Indigenous-Groups-Dominating-Chevron-in-Canada-s-Appellate-Courts-Over-Enforcement-of-Ecuador-Judgment" target="_blank">Canada's Supreme Court</a> already has backed that effort of the rainforest communities in a unanimous opinion.)<br />
<br />
Speaking of double standards, exceptions to the normal rules of justice apparently must be made when Indigenous groups turn the tables on a powerful oil company. Commercial companies get a free pass to the secret arbitration when they can't win in public courts by the normal rules of evidence. But not real human rights victims. According to the arbitrators, these dangerous Amazonian peoples who apparently never merited even a seat in the hotel courtroom <i>must be stopped cold </i>in what seems like a modern-day version of the Indian Removal Act passed in 1830 by the U.S. Congress. While we believe this secret trade court cannot stop the enforcement of the Ecuador judgment, it is still a disgusting example of the state of our world in the age of Trump and the Koch Brothers.<br />
<br />
We remember that day way back in 2009 when Chevron General Counsel Charles James initiated the secret arbitration as he was about to lose the pollution judgment in the company's preferred forum of Ecuador, where it had insisted the trial be held. It made the request under the supposed authority of the U.S.-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty. This treaty came into effect in 1997 even though Chevron already had fled the country in 1992.<br />
<br />
But like the NAFTA treaty, this bilateral trade treaty allowed "investors" to sue host governments for any "complaint" they might conjure up. In this case, Chevron's "investment" was not drilling for oil and then dumping its toxic waste; it was <i>the very fact of its lawsuit brought after the treaty came into effect. </i>Could anything be more unfair? Would you believe us if we told that the Ecuador government official who sold out his country to corporate interests by signing the treaty (Benjamin Ortiz) has served as Chevron's spokesman in Ecuador on the environmental litigation for several years? That's how Ortiz has enriched himself since he left his government post.<br />
<br />
Ecuador under a prior government opposed the entire arbitral process as illegitimate. But the three arbitrators claim they can determine their own jurisdiction with millions of fees waiting in the wings. Guess how they ruled? They granted themselves jurisdiction in yet another example of a conflict-ridden process. Nothing about this deserves any respect from any real court. And Ecuador's President, Lenin Moreno, should strongly defend his nation's citizens in light of this vicious and illegal Chevron assault clothed as an arbitral ruling.<br />
<br />
Ecuadorian community leader Carmen Cartuche, who helped bring the lawsuit against Chevron, appropriately summed up the secret court decision as follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The decision by three male arbitrators who claim they have a right to "judge" Amazonian Indigenous peoples and impoverished farmers secretly from the comfort of luxurious hotel conference rooms in the United States and Europe is outrageous. This decision is an attempt by the global corporate establishment to use unfair trade agreements to block legitimate social movements. This decision is legally irrelevant and will be ignored as the travesty of justice that it is. It will not block our litigation to hold Chevron accountable in Canada so that just compensation can be paid to the thousands of people who died of cancer or otherwise been harmed by the slow genocide the company is imposing on our country.</i></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">T</span>Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-40210704540721550752018-06-11T18:38:00.001-04:002018-06-12T13:14:10.132-04:00Chevron's $12b Ecuador Pollution Liability: Where It Stands After New Canada Court DecisionIt is clear that two recent court decisions in Chevron's $12 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" pollution case -- in Canada and Gibraltar -- have led new CEO Michael Wirth to issue yet more misleading statements to distract attention from the company's environmental liability. Wirth's approach suggests increasing frustration inside Chevron's executive suites as the case enters its 25th year and the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador show no sign of letting up in their historic accountability campaign.<br />
<br />
Chevron has spent an estimated $2 billion on its "corporate intimidation" campaign (see <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/16448/chevrons-slapp-suit-against-ecuadorians-corporate-intimidation/" target="_blank">this article</a> from Greenpeace's Rex Weyler) targeting the Ecuadorian Indigenous peoples and the lawyers who won the landmark court judgment ordering a clean-up of what is widely considered the worst oil-related disaster on earth. Instead of complying with the law, Chevron threatened the Indigenous peoples with a "lifetime of litigation" if they persisted.<br />
<br />
How poorly this strategy is working can be seen by the fact <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41071-Avaaz-Targeting-Chevron-Over-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Disaster-on-Eve-of-Shareholder-Meeting-700-000-Sign-Petition" target="_blank">close to 1 million people signed an on-line petition from Avaaz</a> calling on Chevron's largest shareholder (Vanguard) to challenge company management on the issue. Chevron <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41079-Chevron-Shareholders-Slam-CEO-Mike-Wirth-Over-12B-Ecuador-Pollution-Disaster-At-Annual-Meeting" target="_blank">shareholders slammed Wirth</a> at the company's annual meeting on May 30 over his "material mishandling" of the Ecuador liability and his ham-fisted approach to climate change and environmental issues generally. Chevron is increasingly out of step with the world at large and even many of its industry peers on these critical issues.<br />
<br />
Despite Wirth's massive spending, a lawsuit filed by the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador against Chevron to enforce the $12b judgment is <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41060-Ecuadorians-Chevron-s-12b-Pollution-Liability-Will-Now-Be-Decided-by-Canadian-Supreme-Court-After-Unjust-Ruling-" target="_blank">heading again to Canada's Supreme Court</a>. That's after an <a href="https://www.efe.com/efe/english/business/ecuadorians-win-right-to-sue-chevron-in-canada/50000265-2704581" target="_blank">astounding win</a> by the Ecuadorians before the same court in 2015. The stakes could not be much higher for human rights victims the world over and for corporate polluters like Chevron who continue to use legal maneuvering and tricked-up corporate structuring to evade liabilities for environmental harm. More on that below.<br />
<br />
At Chevron's recent annual meeting, 36 institutional investors who manage $109 billion in assets <a href="https://medium.com/@NewgroundSRI/chevron-investors-ask-for-answers-e533d95ddc1b" target="_blank">urged Wirth to seek settlement of the Ecuador matter</a> as a way to minimize future shareholder risk. Several shareholders directly confronted Wirth at the meeting about the company's failure to address its legal obligations to the people of Ecuador given that <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">cancer rates have skyrocketed</a> and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39588-Legendary-Ecuadorian-Nurse-Who-Hosted-Celebrities-and-Battled-Chevron-Over-Pollution-Tragically-Dies-of-Cancer" target="_blank">legendary nurse Rosa Moreno</a> and thousands of others have died. Two resolutions challenging management over the case <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/41079-Chevron-Shareholders-Slam-CEO-Mike-Wirth-Over-12B-Ecuador-Pollution-Disaster-At-Annual-Meeting" target="_blank">received overwhelming support</a> at levels significantly higher than last year. Zevin Asset Management and Newground Social Investment sponsored the resolutions.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZlxBuXeMxMxc1_sFGEWQGNWvtoquIyZTpzHrpPZhdfBjXy7G57YQIVWPQYCs9KQBy02J2dMeBWnv9CbRI7JcPRI9JT8miWIgarLsV4iC6hopORGcUEvfyHB5l4ZScSngsC7kcuTasTwWP/s1600/people_michael_wirth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZlxBuXeMxMxc1_sFGEWQGNWvtoquIyZTpzHrpPZhdfBjXy7G57YQIVWPQYCs9KQBy02J2dMeBWnv9CbRI7JcPRI9JT8miWIgarLsV4iC6hopORGcUEvfyHB5l4ZScSngsC7kcuTasTwWP/s1600/people_michael_wirth.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New CEO Michael Wirth gives shareholders the proverbial "middle finger".</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Wirth's response to shareholder concerns was to hold up the equivalent of the middle finger. He refused to meet with representatives and then blamed "trial lawyers" like <a href="https://www.donzigerlaw.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a> (the human rights lawyer who has advised the Ecuadorians) for what has to be one of the oldest cliches in the book for corporations caught in major wrongdoing. He also claimed Chevron "cleaned up" its toxic mess in Ecuador -- including its 1,000 open-air waste pits -- when it created an obvious sham remediation that has been rejected by three layers of courts in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
In all, the Chevron shareholder meeting was a stunning rebuke for a CEO who has staked a good portion of his company's reputation on one enormous litigation. Chevron has spent at least $2 billion <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">to hire 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> to attack lawyers for the Indigenous groups whose lands and waterways it poisoned. Yet the company already has lost multiple court decisions in Ecuador (three layers of courts) and in Canada (before the country's Supreme Court and twice before the Ontario Court of Appeal) while Wirth and his management team have dehumanized the very people they continue to harm, as Paul Paz y Miño of Amazon Watch pointed out <a href="https://amazonwatch.org/news/2018/0607-the-real-tragedy-in-ecuador" target="_blank">in this captivating post</a>.<br />
<br />
Chevron did win once in 2014 before a sole U.S. trial judge (Lewis A. Kaplan) who <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">relied on false testimony from a witness paid $2 million by the company</a>, who refused to hear evidence of Chevron's pollution, who <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">held undisclosed investments in Chevron</a> during a farcical trial <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35574-Bias-of-Federal-Judge-and-Chevron-s-Abusive-Tactics-Prompt-Law-Firm-to-Withdraw-from-Ecuador-Case" target="_blank">called a "Dickensian farce" by prominent U.S. trial attorney John Keker</a>, and who later issued a "fraud" finding against Donziger and his clients that has been wholly discredited by admissions from Chevron's key witness that he lied under oath. For background, see <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder_us_592dca76e4b047e77e4c3f0d" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Thus far, that's not a very good litigation record for an army of high-priced Chevron lawyers fighting some of the most vulnerable people in the world. We are surprised Chevron General Counsel Hew Pate, one of the architects of this scorched-earth strategy, was not fired years ago for his incompetence. Yet Wirth -- installed in February after <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/08/chevron-ceo-watson-leaves-legacy-of.html" target="_blank">the disastrous reign of CEO John Watson</a> -- shows no signs of changing course, at least for now.<br />
<br />
Now, let's examine the recent court decisions in Gibraltar and Canada and assess whether Wirth and the Chevron Board are telling the truth to shareholders.<br />
<br />
In the lead-up to Chevron's annual meeting, Wirth issued a press release touting a $38 million "default" judgment Chevron recently won in Gibraltar against an empty bank account held by some rainforest villagers. Gibraltar is a British territory that has only 34,000 people and three judges; it might be the smallest court system in the world.<br />
<br />
The Ecuadorian villagers had intended to use the Gibraltar account to hold clean-up funds outside of their own country (should they ever be collected) as a sort of safety valve given Ecuador's disastrous banking crisis in the late 1990s. The account has been dormant for years and never held funds. Chevron's legal attack on the account, given its absolute irrelevance, was never defended and "default" judgements under these circumstances have almost no legal effect.<br />
<br />
The upshot is that the Gibraltar judgment -- about one-300th the size of Chevron's environmental liability -- is unenforceable against people in the rainforest with no money, although it does show the lengths Chevron will go to try to intimidate its adversaries. It also shows how desperate Wirth is to chalk up some sort of tiny public relations "victory" to try to distract shareholders from the company's $12 billion loss in Ecuador. Nice try, but shareholders are not that stupid.<br />
<br />
In Canada, the case will be heading to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether corporations can evade paying their environmental liabilities simply by placing assets in a wholly-owned subsidiary. Chevron has an estimated $15 billion to $25 billion worth of assets in Canada, or more than enough to pay the Ecuador judgment. All are held by a 7th-tier subsidiary whose shares are owned in their entirety by Chevron.<br />
<br />
The huge risk of these assets being seized to pay for a real clean-up of Chevron's damage in Ecuador is why the company flooded a Toronto courtroom in April with about 40 lawyers for argument before the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA).<br />
<br />
Chevron already had tried to block the litigation by imposing an <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40526-Chevron-Suffers-Major-Legal-Setback-As-Canada-Court-Denies-New-Attempt-to-Block-Ecuador-Enforcement-Action?tracking_source=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+csrwire%2FPRfeed+%28CSRwire.com%29" target="_blank">outrageous $1 million costs order</a> on the impoverished indigenous groups. That effort was overturned unanimously by the OCA last October, clearing the way for argument on the company's last remaining technical defense: that its assets in Canada should be immunized from collection because they are held in that wholly-owned subsidiary. Chevron admits it profits billions of dollars annually from the subsidiary, but claims those same profits cannot be used to pay the Indigenous groups in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
In what can only be described as a narrow-minded decision with dismal implications for Indigenous rights, two members of the three-judge panel on the OCA recently handed a victory of sorts to Chevron (and all corporate polluters) by ruling that environmental liabilities can be evaded by a polluter simply by placing assets in a wholly-owned subsidiary whose shares are owned 100% by the parent company. Think about that: Chevron owes a $12 billion debt to the people of Ecuador, yet under the logic of the two judges, the company will never have to pay the Ecuador judgment even though it profits billions of dollars annually from the same subsidiary.<br />
<br />
Why is that various legal fictions emanating from "corporate law" always seems to take precedence over the rights of Indigenous peoples and other communities when their press their fundamental human rights to live in an environment free of toxic waste? This legal regime has to evolve, and it will be up to Canada's Supreme Court to ensure that it happens.<br />
<br />
It can't be that we live in a world where corporate polluters that lose legal cases to communities they harm can simply stiff their victims through an asset structuring maneuver. This approach clearly over-incentivizes corporations to pollute and will end up not only harming and killing numerous rainforest residents in Ecuador, but likely will spell disaster for our planet over the long run by encouraging yet more reckless extractive activity without the use of proper safety measures.<br />
<br />
The problematic ruling, written by Justice C. William Hourigan (a former commercial litigator), rewards Chevron's bad faith and allows oil and mining companies a license to engage in inherently dangerous resource extraction with little fear of the environmental consequences. The good news is that the decision is so rigid in its approach that it is likely to be overturned; a third judge on the panel essentially took apart Hourigan's logic and exposed his dishonesty in a concurring opinion. We believe it likely that Canada's Supreme Court will course-correct.<br />
<br />
Canada's Supreme Court in 2015 delivered a fabulous victory for the Ecuadorians against Chevron on a jurisdictional question. It is clear that Chevron is running out of technical defenses; the company's entire fraud "defense" likely will collapse once Canadian courts force the company to present its false evidence before a neutral judge. What a tragedy it would be if Canada's courts buy into Chevron's desperate attempt to avoid that moment by making it impossible to collect the company's substantial assets in the country to force it to comply with the rule of law.<br />
<br />
As CEO Wirth prevaricates and disrespects his own shareholders, the Indigenous peoples and farmer communities of Ecuador march on. Their motion seeking Supreme Court review in Canada will be filed in the coming weeks. We will report on that event when it happens.<br />
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Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1163156860455052912018-04-10T08:29:00.002-04:002018-04-10T08:38:53.996-04:00Chevron Should Be Booted From Transparency Initiative Over Corruption Concerns, Say Civil Society Groups<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Several civil society groups, including London-based Global
Witness and Oxfam America, are seeking to boot Chevron from the board of a major international
transparency initiative designed to combat oil industry corruption. This seems like a long overdue step for what has to be one of the most morally bankrupt oil
companies on earth. Readers of the Pit might remember that in 2015 in Davos, Chevron won the Public Eye Award for being the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-davos-chevron-crowned-worst.html" target="_blank">world's worst corporation</a> over its Ecuador environmental disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron is now well into its seventh year of trying to stiff Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and farmer communities out of
their $12 billion environmental judgment, won in 2011 after an 8-year trial delayed repeatedly by the company's strategy of subterfuge. Three layers of courts in Ecuador, where Chevron had insisted the trial be held, found the company deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste onto rainforest ancestral lands and abandoned roughly 1,000 open-air toxic waste pits prior to fleeing the country in 1992. (See <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> for the overwhelming evidence of what is now considered the world's worst oil-related environmental disaster.) </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The very
idea that Chevron -- which later <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">fabricated evidence</a> and bribed a witness with $2 million to try to evade its liability to the people of Ecuador -- could be leading any type of anti-corruption initiative is laughable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron faces this backlash in part because of its
refusal to disclose tax payments in compliance with the standards of the
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which was founded in 2003 with the backing of the British government to root out corruption in the oil industry. The
EITI has created model anti-corruption laws now adopted by 51 countries (including Canada) that
require oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose any payments to foreign
governments. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The U.S. Congress passed the EITI standards into law in 2010 as part
of Dodd-Frank, but Chevron for years has worked with industry lobbyists to block the rules required for implementation. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Now that the Trump Administration is doing the
oil industry's bidding, the EITI rules opposed by Chevron and the American
Petroleum Institute are all but dead in the United States. S</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">everal American oil companies still comply voluntarily with the rules, but not
Chevron or Exxon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron and Exxon sought to weaken the
transparency rules while serving on the Board of the EITI and professing to
support them. They then cynically blamed the absence of a rule in the U.S. whose implementation they blocked for their own failure to comply with the EITI standards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Here's what 12 civil society leaders from around the world wrote in
seeking to boot Chevron (and Exxon) from the EITI Board:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">"We
urge that the ... EITI Board meeting include a discussion about the refusal of
ExxonMobil and Chevron to disclose their tax payments through the terms of
implementation of the EITI Standard in the United States. We believe strongly
that the refusal to engage in the most basic aspect of compliance constitutes a
repeated and willful violation of the EITI Code of Conduct ... and an act of bad
faith that is counter to the spirit of the EITI movement itself. These actions
not only contributed to the demise of the U.S. EITI process, but damaged the
credibility of the EITI both in practice and in the eyes of the global
community.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.pwypusa.org/pwyp-news/civil-society-organizations-call-on-exxonmobil-and-chevron-to-be-removed-from-the-eiti-board/">Here is the full letter</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Our advice to the EITI: given Chevron's
horrendous record of toxic dumping in Ecuador and its <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-taxation-office-chasing-1-billion-from-energy-giant-chevron-in-massive-tax-case-20170607-gwm6wl.html"><span style="color: blue;">burgeoning tax problems in Australia</span></a>, the company
never should have been part of the EITI leadership to begin with. That's like putting the arsonist in charge of the firehouse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">We at the Chevron Pit know that abusive and hypocritical behavior is deeply rooted in Chevron's management
culture. Company officials like General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate actually <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0424-chevron-lawyer-receives-millions-for-losing-18-billion-ecuador-lawsuit"><span style="color: blue;">receive large bonuses</span></a> for committing corrupt
acts against the Ecuadorians and then losing legal cases against them based on
the evidence. CEO John Watson had <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2010/0527-new-questions-about-chevron-ceo" target="_blank">five shareholders who criticized his Ecuador policy arrested</a> at the 2010 annual meeting. Pate in 2013 also served subpoenas on more than 100 civil society advocates, journalists, and activists who were trying to help the Ecuadorian communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Last year, Chevron <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-taxation-office-chasing-1-billion-from-energy-giant-chevron-in-massive-tax-case-20170607-gwm6wl.html"><span style="color: blue;">was slammed with a $1 billion fine</span></a> in
Australia for ripping off the company's tax authorities. Chevron had set up a tax-avoidance scheme whereby a Chevron subsidiary in Delaware loaned
money at exorbitant interest to a Chevron subsidiary in Australia.
Payments on the loans from the Australian subsidiary to the Delaware subsidiary
then "disappeared" the company's sizable Australian profits. This
enabled Chevron to avoid taxes in Australia entirely even though it made billions of
dollars annually from its operations in the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">In the Ecuador pollution case, Chevron
desperately wanted the litigation over its toxic dumping in the Amazon heard in
Ecuador even though the villagers originally sought relief in U.S. courts. That
was, until it started to lose the case and began attacking Ecuador's courts
while selling off all of its assets in the country to evade any eventual
liability. A Chevron official recently threatened the Ecuadorian indigenous peoples
with a "lifetime of litigation" if they continued to pursue their
claims. That forced the villagers into Canadian courts where they are trying to seize some of the company's estimated $15 billion worth of assets in the country to force compliance with their judgment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Even with these intimidation tactics, it is
becoming apparent that Chevron is losing the
enforcement action in Canada despite deceitfully trying to downplay the risk in its public filings. Journalists in the industry are recognizing Chevron is in serious trouble. (See <a href="https://www.miningprospectslawblog.com/2017/10/31/ontario-court-of-appeal-overturns-security-for-costs-order-in-yaiguaje-v-chevron-corporation/"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></a>.) Appellate courts in Canada <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40597-Indigenous-Groups-Dominating-Chevron-in-Canada-s-Appellate-Courts-Over-Enforcement-of-Ecuador-Judgment"><span style="color: blue;">have delivered three straight unanimous decisions</span></a> in
favor of the villagers. Now, the Canadian public is beginning to see how Chevron can
be a very ungrateful guest when it comes to respecting tax laws.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">This is highly relevant after Chevron recently disclosed that its wholly-owned 7th-tier subsidiary in Canada (Chevron Canada) was funneling
billions of dollars annually to the governments of Nigeria and Indonesia. Not
only are these payments from a low-level foreign subsidiary to foreign governments highly suspicious from a
corruption standpoint, they undercut Chevron's legal argument in the
enforcement case that the assets of its Canadian subsidiary should be off-limits to the villagers given that it is only a Canadian company. A critical legal argument on that issue is scheduled for April 17-18 in Toronto.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron's disingenuous claim that its shareholders should be allowed to reap huge profits from Chevron Canada while its assets should be immunized from any liabilities has never held much water legally</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">. But we can thank EITI for requiring the rather stunning Chevron disclosure that Chevron Canada is not what the company had claimed, but is in fact at the epicenter of a global profit-making machine that spreads into Asia and Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Canadian tax authorities and the U.S. Department of
Justice -- which already has <a href="https://www.miningprospectslawblog.com/2017/10/31/ontario-court-of-appeal-overturns-security-for-costs-order-in-yaiguaje-v-chevron-corporation/"><span style="color: blue;">a criminal referral letter about Chevron</span></a> over the Ecuador pollution case -- might want to find out just why Chevron is sending huge payments via a 7th-tier subsidiary in Canada to foreign governments that are themselves known for tolerating and even encouraging corruption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">These are not the only problems faced by Chevron over the Ecuador pollution matter.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron's main defense to enforcement in Canada is a retaliatory U.S.-based "racketeering"
case attacking the villagers that supposedly found "fraud" in Ecuador's courts. But that case -- handled by a woefully biased U.S. judge who refused to seat a jury -- has collapsed after it turned out
company lawyers at the Gibson Dunn law firm <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">paid a Chevron witness to lie on the stand</a>, among other problems. No fewer than 21 appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada, including the Supreme Courts of both countries, have either rejected or ignored those findings. (For more detail about Chevron's corrupt and even criminal acts in that U.S. case, see <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chevrons-payments-to-rico-witness-are-not-just-ugly_us_5931c879e4b0649fff2118e9" target="_blank">this excellent analysis</a> by human rights lawyer Aaron Page and <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/2014/04/16/unnecessary-truth-reflections-wasnt-told-chevron-ecuador-rico-case/" target="_blank">this analysis</a> by Marissa Vahlsing of Earth Rights International.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron scientists recently were <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes"><span style="color: blue;">caught on video</span></a> trying to defraud the Ecuador court
by trying to hide evidence of the company's pollution. Chevron also <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2009/0204-new-evidence-shows-chevron-manipulated-lab-results?searched=TCLP&advsearch=allwords&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1"><span style="color: blue;">cheated during the Ecuador trial</span></a> by using a
wholly inappropriate laboratory test (called TCLP) designed to "miss"
any trace of toxins in its soil samples that were submitted to the court.
(See <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/how-chevrons-scientists-m_b_5799434.html"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></a> for more of Chevron's junk science.)
Company lawyers threatened Ecuadorian judges with jail time and once filed 39 motions
in 50 minutes to paralyze the proceeding, which took eight long
years while untold numbers of people died of oil-related diseases. (See t<a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/01/chevrons-massive-pollution-in-ecuador.html"><span style="color: blue;">his story</span></a> on the cancer death of legendary
nurse Rosa Moreno). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Aside from its EITI problems, Chevron is also
under <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://csrstrategygroup.com/chevron-shareholders-challenge-management-over-ecuador-pollution/">real heat from its own shareholders</a>. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Several have criticized
management's "material mishandling" of the Ecuador litigation.
Chevron is also under fire for its toxic dumping in Ecuador from </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40397-Chevron-Hit-Hard-In-Canada-Major-Indigenous-Leaders-Back-Collection-of-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-" style="font-family: times; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: blue;">the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations</span></a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">,
the national indigenous federation in Canada which represents 634 nationalities
in the country. Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40378-Greenpeace-Co-founder-Rex-Weyler-Condemns-Chevron-for-Ecological-Crimes-in-Ecuador-s-Amazon-Region" style="font-family: times; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank">accused Chevron of committing "ecological crimes"</a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> in Ecuador after touring the impacted area last year.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">It is clear is that Chevron does not deserve to
be on the Board of the EITI or any anti-corruption initiative given its pattern of truly savage behavior toward the people of Ecuador and the shroud of secrecy it maintains over its operations. Interestingly, just days ago the Canadian Broadcasting
Company and activist groups (including Friends of the Earth and Amazon
Watch) <a href="https://foecanada.org/en/2018/04/record-environmental-judgement-moves-to-ontario-superior-court-in-toronto/" target="_blank">filed motions</a> in Canada to lift Chevron's completely
over-broad confidentiality in the enforcement case brought by the Ecuadorians. Chevron imposed that order to hide huge chunks of what must be a very embarrassing court record.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">That court record apparently includes details from a recent deposition of a Chevron Canada official by a lawyer for the Ecuadorians. The official likely was asked why a 7th-tier wholly-owned subsidiary that Chevron claims should not be responsible for paying court-ordered compensation to the people of Ecuador is instead paying billions of dollars to foreign governments on the other side of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chevron should be booted from the EITI Board and
Canadian courts should lift the secrecy order <i>post haste</i> from this important public interest litigation. Courts need to shine a bright light on a company that appears to be in a class by
itself when it comes to disrespecting indigenous groups and using corrupt tactics to evade its legal obligations. More public scrutiny -- both in and out of court -- is absolutely critical to ensure real accountability for Chevron in the Ecuador litigation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-29006697987623553512018-03-26T07:59:00.001-04:002018-03-28T04:20:31.616-04:00Chevron Hurting Again As Shareholders Show Renewed Anxiety Over $12B Ecuador Pollution Judgment<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAWXYAOsRdkTT71gXN4gWZ84N_iYV2Wqd6TtLusArAJrCpRwlVYHRN8Yx8gHQy5fpi11XgqC5kzGpV7enrbs7kX4lpuEo5Bq_5hAxncnHTrFz-IQCxRx519hvpVpr764Luy90BNKD2gpRm/s1600/Hew-Pate-Vert-photo-by-Rebecca-Breyer-199x300.jpg" /></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdEcpp73BrAOtbJ7gxPlRbizy6iOAB7JL12ZZVQKJpp7iwGlIFOqXgs0-RYLOv8K7TnfniGaZ5Hje4BWRfpIm8KfCkb8PD_rlN_ZqWmbhpmSP8DspyV4kD6gYRfPikTTqggqPsT2noKA/s320/mastro.jpg" width="200" /></td> </tr>
<tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">R. Hewitt Pate</td> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Randy Mastro</td> </tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Chevron's management team, led by new CEO Michael Wirth and longtime General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate, faces deepening problems in Canada as Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and farmer communities continue what is fast becoming a very realistic campaign to seize company assets to collect on their historic $12b pollution judgment.<br />
<br />
Clear indications of Chevron's deteriorating litigation position: many Chevron shareholders are <a href="http://csrstrategygroup.com/chevron-shareholders-challenge-management-over-ecuador-pollution/" target="_blank">expressing deep anxiety</a> about the company's scorched-earth approach when dealing with indigenous peoples. In the meantime, Canadian courts continue to rule in favor of the villagers and against Chevron on several critical issues.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40874-In-Canada-Chevron-Faces-New-Risks-From-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-As-Shareholders-Step-up-Pressure" target="_blank">This press release</a> from the Front for the Defense of the Amazon ("FDA") -- the community-based group in Ecuador's rainforest that brought the claims against Chevron in 1993 and has led the campaign to hold the company accountable -- captures some of the recent developments. But there is much more to suggest Chevron's management team is under bone-crushing pressure on Ecuador and that it might get even worse.<br />
<br />
That management team -- including Pate, the architect of the company's scorched-earth litigation policy since 2009 -- have spent (or squandered) huge sums of shareholder funds to hire 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers to try to beat back the indigenous groups and farmer communities. The Chevron effort has been led by the Gibson Dunn law firm. Gibson Dunn has used hundreds of lawyers to bill Chevron an estimated $1 billion over the last five years.<br />
<br />
These Chevron expenditures, as large as they are, now appear to be largely for naught. The company surely thought they would be enough to kill off the claims. But what is arguably the world's most important corporate accountability campaign and indigenous rights litigation continues to pick up steam.<br />
<br />
Consider:<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Chevron's RICO Judgment Is Backfiring</i></b>: The Ecuadorians won their historic judgment against Chevron in 2011 after Chevron insisted the trial be held in Ecuador and accepted jurisdiction there. But Chevron's high-water mark in the case took place in 2014 when controversial U.S. judge Lewis A. Kaplan presided over a farcical non-jury civil "racketeering" (known as "RICO") trial financed by Chevron and designed -- in clear violation of international law -- to attack the Ecuador judgment from the company's hometown court. Chevron's case was led by Randy Mastro, a notoriously nasty lawyer from Gibson Dunn who once fanned the flames of racial discord in the early 1990s for right-wing New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.<br />
<br />
It is now undeniable that Kaplan's ruling for Chevron was the product of the company's fabricated evidence and paid-for witness testimony, a fact which earned Chevron and Mastro a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">criminal referral letter</a> to the U.S. Department of Justice -- something the company has yet to disclose to shareholders. A RICO judgment that the company once thought was its best defense has now arguably become one of its worst liabilities. And Pate, who is up to his neck in financing this Gibson Dunn-led corruption, is shockingly still using the ethically-challenged Mastro as the company's lead lawyer on the case.<br />
<br />
How effective has the Pate/Mastro alliance been? <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40597-Indigenous-Groups-Dominating-Chevron-in-Canada-s-Appellate-Courts-Over-Enforcement-of-Ecuador-Judgment" target="_blank">At least 21 appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada have rejected or ignored the Kaplan RICO ruling</a>, including the entire Supreme Courts of both countries which issued separate unanimous decisions in favor of the villagers affirming all or parts of the underlying judgment. These decisions have rendered Kaplan's judgment a nullity for purposes of blocking enforcement. Let's not forget that Pate's entire objective in bringing the RICO case was to block enforcement of the Ecuador judgment. (For a full explanation of Chevron's corruption of the RICO case, see <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">this report</a>.)<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Canadian Courts Have Little Love For Chevron</i></b>: Chevron's litigation position in Canada is faltering despite having hired four of the country's best law firms on top of the 60 law firms Chevron hired in the U.S. The Canada Supreme Court in 2015 <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">unanimously rejected</a> Chevron's attempt to block the villagers from collecting company assets on jurisdictional grounds. The Ontario Court of Appeal also <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40526-Chevron-Suffers-Major-Legal-Setback-As-Canada-Court-Denies-New-Attempt-to-Block-Ecuador-Enforcement-Action?tracking_source=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+csrwire%2FPRfeed+%28CSRwire.com%29" target="_blank">ruled against Chevron</a> twice, including on a preposterous attempt by Pate to impose a $1 million costs order on the impoverished villagers. Chevron also faces a possible major tax fraud issue in Canada involving the transfer of billions of dollars from its subsidiary to the governments of Nigeria and Indonesia, which will do little to endear it to authorities or the public.<br />
<br />
Chevron is now hurtling toward an enforcement trial in Toronto where its "RICO" evidence risks a humiliating collapse in front of shareholders and the public. Canadian judges are attuned to indigenous rights and human rights issues in ways that U.S. judges are not, creating a hostile litigation environment for a company responsible for toxic dumping on the ancestral lands of First Nation's groups.<br />
<br />
Making matters worse for Chevron, the FDA has attracted extremely competent support, including well-known commercial litigator <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/meet-alan-lenczner-the-man-fighting-for-ecuadoran-villagers-in-their-canadian-case-against-chevron" target="_blank">Alan Lenczner</a>, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40457-Renowned-Aboriginal-Rights-Lawyer-Peter-Grant-Joining-Case-Against-Chevron-on-Behalf-of-Ecuadorian-Communities" target="_blank">renowned aboriginal rights lawyer Peter Grant</a>, former National Chief Phil Fontaine (of Canada's Assembly of First Nations), Grand Chief Ed John, and Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler. (See <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40397-Chevron-Hit-Hard-In-Canada-Major-Indigenous-Leaders-Back-Collection-of-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-" target="_blank">here</a> for comments by Fontaine and John and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40378-Greenpeace-Co-founder-Rex-Weyler-Condemns-Chevron-for-Ecological-Crimes-in-Ecuador-s-Amazon-Region" target="_blank">here</a> for Weyler accusing Chevron of committing "ecological crimes" in Ecuador.)<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Chevron's Defense In Canada Rests On A Thin Reed</i></b>: Chevron's defense in Canada is now down to a very thin reed. The company will claim in a hearing before the Ontario Court of Appeal scheduled for April 17 that its wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary, Chevron Canada, should be immunized from asset collection. The goal is impunity for corporate human rights abuses.<br />
<br />
Since Chevron Canada purports to control all of Chevron's assets in the country, if the Canadian court agrees with Chevron then indigenous groups in Ecuador likely will not collect a single dollar on their judgment. Given the extent to which indigenous groups and vulnerable peoples across the planet will suffer from corporate harms if Chevron's extreme argument becomes law, it is highly unlikely Canadian judges will agree. Chevron's position is just legally and practically untenable in the modern world of globalized commerce.<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Shareholders Angry With Chevron Management:</i></b> Key Chevron shareholders are again taking note of the increasing risk in Canada. The U.S. firms Zevin Asset Management and Newground Investment have led the fight to hold company management accountable for its "material mishandling" of the case. Last year, two resolutions related to the Ecuador liability received substantial support despite being opposed by management.<br />
<br />
Even more shareholders -- including the pension fund from Vermont -- are backing the resolutions this year, where they are likely to garner even more support while indigenous leaders from the rainforest plan to confront CEO Wirth face to face. Shareholders with an estimated $500 billion of assets have urged company management to look for a settlement.<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Chevron's Attacks On Human Rights Defenders Suggest Desperation: </i></b>When Chevron begins to lose ground in court, it often tries to distract attention by attacking the lawyers for the Ecuadorians. Those attacks are a good barometer of how desperate company management feels at any given time. In recent weeks, as the company's litigation prospects dim, Chevron has renewed its attacks on U.S. h<a href="https://www.donzigerlaw.com/" target="_blank">uman rights defender Steven R. Donziger</a>, the only lawyer still working on the case who helped to launch the original litigation in 1993. Chevron earlier conceded in an internal email that its long-term strategy was to "demonize" Donziger.<br />
<br />
In yet another sign of anxiety, Pate recently ordered Mastro to go back to Judge Kaplan (four years after the end of the RICO case) to try to block Donziger's ongoing efforts to help his clients finance the enforcement litigations. Chevron is trying to claim Donziger should be held in "contempt" for doing his job as a lawyer, which includes ensuring his clients have sufficient resources to pursue their human rights claims in the face of Chevron's attack campaign. Pate's latest move is nothing more than a ruse to try to intimidate supporters of the communities. Chevron once sued more than 100 bloggers, journalists, and activists who have in some way helped the affected communities.<br />
<br />
Chevron also has mounted some bizarre attacks on Alan Lenczner and Peter Grant, the two prominent Canadian lawyers representing the Ecuadorians. Chevron is <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40696-In-Canada-Chevron-Trying-to-Block-Ecuadorians-From-Using-U-N-Declaration-to-Support-Historic-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">trying to block Grant</a> from arguing the case within the framework of indigenous rights. The company also baselessly accused Lenczner of violating a ridiculously over-broad confidentiality order it imposed on the litigation to try to hide its own bad news from the media and the public.<br />
<br />
**<b><i>Chevron's Lack of Public Disclosure of Its Ecuador Risk</i></b>: Chevron is also lying again to shareholders. Although we will explain this in more detail in a future blog, the company's response to the Ecuador lawsuit in its public disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission -- which regulates public markets in the U.S. -- is, to put it mildly, extremely misleading.<br />
<br />
Chevron in its disclosures does not explain how its RICO judgment has collapsed or is the <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">product of its own fraud</a>, as orchestrated by the Gibson Dunn firm; that certain company officials and outside lawyers are the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">subject of a criminal referral letter</a> for fabricating evidence; that the company faces a humiliating trial in Canada; that appellate courts in Ecuador and Canada have consistently ruled against Chevron; or that company officials appear to be <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40848-Chevron-Selling-Major-Oil-Assets-in-Canada-While-Trying-to-Escape-9-5B-Pollution-Debt-Owed-to-Rainforest-Villagers" target="_blank">selling off their Canadian assets</a>, possibly to evade the ongoing liability to the people of Ecuador. U.S. and Canadian authorities have every obligation to investigate these evasive actions.<br />
<br />
There is little doubt that new Chevron CEO Wirth inherited a litigation disaster when he assumed leadership of the company in February. The question is whether Wirth has the good sense to try to clean it up. To do so, the obvious first move is to muzzle Mastro and find a more reasonable General Counsel to take over from Pate. Wirth also needs to explore an exit strategy before the company's business problems in Canada grow even worse and more <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">indigenous peoples die from cancer</a> in Ecuador in the area where Chevron abandoned and refused to properly remediate 1,000 unlined toxic waste pits.<br />
<br />
When it comes to the Ecuador matter, Chevron's litigation department is like a crack addict on a trip gone seriously awry. Each short-term high only leads to a greater desire for another which leads to an unpleasant downward cycle of massive spending producing ever-diminishing returns. This irritates shareholders, harms indigenous peoples, discourages governments from doing business with Chevron, and creates enormous reputational risks. Throw in Chevron's lack of responsiveness to global warming and one sees a business model that is simply not sustainable over the long haul.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, Mastro and other lawyers at Gibson Dunn buy new vacation homes and live high off the company's hog of litigation stupidity. Pate receives $8 million in annual bonuses for architecting a failed strategy. Chevron's CEO gets yelled at by indigenous peoples at the annual meeting.<br />
<br />
It is clear that the Pate/Mastro gig is almost up. The question is whether Wirth recognizes it.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkiB3LhuVDYRGfPe1PYiXxD3aR325t7QepRajcxHg7fv2Vhe4rAgPRelLurEavuYBLkrEfh-RwdPeRt6YfGLVJUI5kqQwecjKTELOwaC0hABccBDZ543JqbnQc8RhmCzbVsNnyWlUK5aW/s1600/download+%25285%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkiB3LhuVDYRGfPe1PYiXxD3aR325t7QepRajcxHg7fv2Vhe4rAgPRelLurEavuYBLkrEfh-RwdPeRt6YfGLVJUI5kqQwecjKTELOwaC0hABccBDZ543JqbnQc8RhmCzbVsNnyWlUK5aW/s1600/download+%25285%2529.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oil waste pit left by Chevron in Ecuador</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-72872702323399936522018-01-04T09:33:00.004-05:002018-01-05T06:03:28.154-05:00Chevron's Use of Paul Manafort Might Be Another Attempt to Corrupt Ecuador Environmental JudgmentGiven that Chevron's campaign to try to undermine the $9.5 billion environmental judgment against it in Ecuador <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40670-In-2017-Chevron-Suffered-a-Rough-Year-in-Historic-Ecuador-Environmental-Litigation" target="_blank">hit major turbulence</a> in 2017, it should not be surprising that the company might look for new avenues to corrupt the legal process to evade paying compensation to the indigenous peoples and farmer communities that it poisoned.<br />
<br />
What looks like the latest Exhibit A in Chevron's Ecuador corruption file concerns none other than Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager and erstwhile Chevron lobbyist in the Ukraine and Russia. Manafort was indicted as part of the Robert Mueller investigation in October on multiple counts of money laundering and lying to the federal government. The indictment might have been expected, but we were absolutely stunned to find out recently that Manafort was in Ecuador in May (while Mueller was hot on his heels) for a top-secret meeting with the country's newly elected President, Lenin Moreno.<br />
<br />
We suspect that we are not the only ones thinking that Manafort was in Ecuador to carry out another phase of Chevron's long-running "dirty tricks" campaign, with a hoped-for bonus payment for manipulating the new government such that the oil company might finally evade the judgment after years of trying and massive (and thus far futile) <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">expenditures on at least 60 law firms</a>. The many disturbing questions raised by the Manafort meeting in Ecuador ultimately might have to be answered by Mueller, or via an investigation with the power to force answers out of Chevron.<br />
<br />
We at The Chevron Pit are highly skeptical that the Manafort meeting in Quito was an innocent coincidence. What we do know is that it happened during a period when Chevron's army of D.C.-based lobbyists have been furiously trying to leverage the Trump Administration to pressure Ecuador's new government to undermine the case as part of a supposed "re-set" of bilateral relations between the two countries -- in essence, just another form of attempted oil industry blackmail designed to externalize the costs of pollution onto the backs of vulnerable indigenous peoples.<br />
<br />
Manafort for months kept quiet about the news of his meeting with Ecuador President Moreno, an indication something is foul-smelling. He only admitted it when he was forced to disclose to a U.S. federal court the details of his foreign travel as he was seeking bail. That opened our eyes to a Pandora's box of circumstantial evidence that seems to point the way of our suspicions.<br />
<br />
Consider the facts as known and Chevron's obvious motivation:<br />
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**It is clear that Chevron's current management team is increasingly desperate regarding its Ecuador liability (now $12 billion with interest) as <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40597-Indigenous-Groups-Dominating-Chevron-in-Canada-s-Appellate-Courts-Over-Enforcement-of-Ecuador-Judgment" target="_blank">three straight Canadian appellate courts have issued unanimous rulings</a> against the company in a judgment enforcement action to seize assets to force compliance with the rule of law in Ecuador. In total, <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/21-0-ecuadorian-aboriginals-are.html" target="_blank">21 appellate judges have ruled against Chevron</a> and in favor of the Ecuadorian rainforest communities in Ecuador and Canada, including the entire Supreme Courts of both countries. Not a single appellate judge in either country has ruled in favor of Chevron. Chevron shareholders publicly <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40039-Shareholders-Criticize-Chevron-CEO-Watson-for-Materially-Mishandling-12-Billion-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability" target="_blank">accused CEO of John Watson of "materially mishandling"</a> the litigation. When it comes to Ecuador, it's steaming hot in the Chevron management kitchen at the moment.<br />
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**The Manafort meeting comes at a time when Chevron and certain of its attorneys at its outside U.S. law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher face <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40553-Chevron-and-Gibson-Dunn-Face-Potential-Criminal-Probe-Over-2m-Witness-Bribery-Plot-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">a potential criminal probe</a> by the U.S. Department of Justice over witness bribery, fabrication of evidence, and other corrupt acts carried out at the behest of the company in the Ecuador matter. Chevron's long pattern of trying to corrupt the environmental case (documented <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/chevrons-corruption" target="_blank">here</a> by Amazon Watch) -- including a ham-fisted effort by company operative Diego Borja <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33263-Chevron-Dirty-Tricks-Operative-Diego-Borja-Could-Face-Criminal-Liability-for-Obstructing-Ecuador-Trial-His-Lawyer-Concedes" target="_blank">to orchestrate a sting operation</a> against a sitting Ecuador trial judge -- strongly suggest the meeting was not an attempt by Manafort to lobby the government over Chinese investments, as has been claimed. Disturbingly, Gibson Dunn also has <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">a long history of fabricating evidence and crossing the ethical line</a> on behalf of corporate clients mired in scandal.<br />
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**It is undisputed that Chevron was slammed with its Ecuador liability after three layers of courts found <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">evidence it systematically and deliberately dumped</a> billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest, decimating local indigenous and farmer communities and causing a massive <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">outbreak of cancer</a> that has killed or threatens to kill thousands. One reason Chevron CEO Watson and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate are in such a jam (aside from their lack of interest in a real settlement of the claims) is because the company insisted the trial be held in Ecuador. Chevron thought then it could use political pressure to engineer a dismissal of the case. We believe Watson still thinks politics and lobbying can solve his problem.<br />
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**With regard to Manafort, the high-powered lobbyist was indicted for activities mostly related to his prior work for Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych, a patently corrupt dictator. Manafort also has extensive ties to Russian oligarchs and was a Chevron-paid lobbyist when he worked in the Ukraine with a charge to seek oil and gas deals for the company via the Yanukovych government, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/us/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html?_r=1" target="_blank">an expose</a> published in 2016 in The New York Times.<br />
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**According to our sources in Ecuador, the meeting between Manafort and President Moreno was arranged by none other than the notorious Ivonne Baki, a a major Chevron lobbyist in the South American nation. Baki, who attended the meeting, has her own long <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amazon-defense-coalition-ivonne-baki-tried-to-help-chevron-bribe-ecuadors-government-to-thwart-18-billion-environmental-case-court-documents-suggest-136062918.html" target="_blank">history</a> of trying to leverage her influence as a government official in Ecuador to assist Chevron in its campaign to undermine the legal claims of the indigenous peoples and farmer communities it harmed. The fact these communities comprise the very people Baki took an oath to protect seems not to matter to her. Baki is also reportedly is a good friend of Donald Trump, having hosted (on behalf of Ecuador's government) the Trump-owned 2004 Miss Universe Pageant in Quito.<br />
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It is worth reviewing some of the history of Chevron's and Baki's corrupt acts in the legal case to understand the possible context for Manafort's sudden and bizarre foray into the highest echelon of Ecuador's power structure.<br />
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This <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-anderson/chevrons-ecuador-end-run-_b_1156876.html" target="_blank">article by Mitch Anderson</a> of Amazon Watch provides a partial summary of some of Baki's numerous corrupt acts on behalf of Chevron dating back to the 1990s, when as Ecuador's ambassador to the United States she signed a letter drafted by Chevron that was submitted to a U.S. court seeking dismissal of the case prior to trial. In 2012, Baki worked with Chevron to float the idea of a $500 million "donation" from the company to Ecuador's Yasuni environmental initiative in exchange for an illegal "dismissal" of the legal claims in the environmental case -- a move that we believe was in full motion before Anderson exposed it in The Huffington Post.<br />
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Baki's dealings with Trump is perfectly in keeping with her character. With the rural poverty rate in Ecuador in 2004 around 65%, Baki (as Minister of Tourism) made a fool of herself by spending at least $5 million of precious government money to defray Trump's Miss Universe production costs. Trump and Baki used the impoverished taxpayers of Ecuador to subsidize the Miss Universe pageant; Trump made greater profits, and Baki increased her influence. (As a curious aside, the 2004 pageant in Ecuador was hosted by none other than Billy Bush of the Access Hollywood tape.)<br />
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Aside from Baki, Chevron repeatedly has tried to corrupt Ecuador's government to evade its liability. In the early 1990s, just after the communities filed their lawsuit, Chevron hired the Clinton-era U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Richard Holwill, to try to convince Ecuador's then-President to illegally quash the case. In 2010, Chevron hired a former high-level State Department official to lobby the Obama Administration to float the idea of a $700 million "aid package" to Ecuador that would not be granted unless the case was dismissed. Multiple clandestine efforts by Chevron to use the U.S. State Department and the U.S. embassy in Quito to kill off the case were <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0921-wikileaks-cables-expose-chevron-lobbying-of-ecuador-government-to-kill-environmental-case" target="_blank">amply documented by the Wikileaks cables</a>.<br />
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In 2016, Chevron leveraged a certain official in Ecuador's then government to pressure a young lawyer on the legal team for the communities to unilaterally lift an embargo order against the company without consulting his clients. This one move resulted in the outrageous payment by Ecuador's government to Chevron of a $112 million judgment won under very suspect facts in a separate arbitration case. By law, the funds should have been used to help satisfy the environmental award and to start the remediation of Chevron's damage. The lawyer who lifted the embargo order, Pablo Fajardo, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39564-Eight-More-Ecuadorian-Villagers-Fire-Attorney-Pablo-Fajardo-For-Secretly-Lifting-Embargo-Against-Chevron" target="_blank">immediately was fired</a> by the plaintiff's group in the case, the Front for the Defense of the Amazon (known as the "FDA" by its Spanish acronym).<br />
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Chevron also lied about a sham clean-up it conducted in Ecuador in the mid-1990s, where it spent less than 1% of the real cost of a remediation while covering up open-air waste pits with dirt (our <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/chevrons-sham-remediation_b_6149444.html" target="_blank">Karen Hinton helped expose this</a> in 2014); it also paid a witness, Alberto Guerra, $2 million in cash and benefits to fabricate evidence and perjure himself in a U.S.-based retaliatory civil RICO case. (See <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> for evidence of the Chevron-Guerra corruption scandal.)<br />
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It is awfully curious to us why Manafort, who appears to be cash-desperate as he faces mounting legal bills, would be in Ecuador while under the microscope of a high-profile investigation. He's either more of a fool than we thought, or was lured by a possible pay-out from Chevron that would be enough to compensate him for the enormous risk of engaging in acts that could have been worth billions of dollars to the oil giant.<br />
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If Chevron's interests were put forth in the meeting with Moreno, there is little doubt that additional crimes were committed not just by Manafort but also by any contacts in Chevron who put him up to it. A U.S. corporation trying to corrupt a foreign court judgment not only violates the criminal law in the host country, but also runs afoul of U.S. laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.<br />
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Either way, we would encourage Mueller and the DOJ to determine what exactly happened during the Manafort trip to Ecuador. Chevron's shareholders should also demand that the company hire independent counsel to determine whether CEO Watson has created yet more risk due to the company's corrupt acts in Ecuador, both in prior years and with the Manafort meeting in Quito.<br />
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<i>(We will continue to pursue this story as it unfolds. For further background on Chevron's fraud in the Ecuador case, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/fraud-invest-report-nov.pdf" target="_blank">this report</a> from 2006; see <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amazon-defense-coalition-ivonne-baki-tried-to-help-chevron-bribe-ecuadors-government-to-thwart-18-billion-environmental-case-court-documents-suggest-136062918.html" target="_blank">this press release</a> and related links regarding multiple meetings held by Chevron officials with Ecuadorian government officials; and <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">this video</a> regarding how company scientists conspired to hide pollution from Ecuador's courts.)</i><br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-83421543498213735212017-12-19T13:47:00.002-05:002017-12-19T13:47:45.301-05:002017: Chevron Had A Bad Year In $12 Billion Ecuador Litigation For Chevron and its CEO John Watson, 2017 was a very bad year for the company's campaign to evade paying a $9.5 billion environmental liability (now $12b with interest) in Ecuador.<br />
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Watson in 2017 not only suffered a major legal setback in the Ecuador case in Canada, he also was severely criticized by major investors who lashed out over his "material mishandling" of the litigation. Chevron has spent huge sums (at least $2 billion on 60 law firms) in an increasingly futile attempt to try to get the impoverished indigenous peoples and farmer communities to "give up" and become obedient subjects of corporate power. That obviously isn't happening.<br />
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If 2017 taught us anything about the Ecuador litigation, it is that the affected communities and their supporters will keep coming and coming no matter what massive level of resources Watson throws at them. It is becoming increasingly clear that Chevron is spending and wasting massive amounts of shareholder funds to attack the rule of law in Ecuador. That effort has earned the company a new <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">criminal referral </a>to the U.S. Department of Justice and increased risk for shareholders.<br />
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It bears remembering that three layers of courts in Ecuador, in the venue where Chevron insisted the trial be held, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/world/americas/15ecuador.html" target="_blank">affirmed the company's liability</a>. That includes a unanimous decision from the country's Supreme Court. Yet Watson and his team repeatedly have threatened the communities they poisoned with a "lifetime of litigation" if they persist.<br />
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Here are some of 2017's lowlights for Chevron and CEO John Watson in the Ecuador litigation:<br />
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**In October in Canada, Chevron suffered another <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40597-Indigenous-Groups-Dominating-Chevron-in-Canada-s-Appellate-Courts-Over-Enforcement-of-Ecuador-Judgment" target="_blank">unanimous defeat</a> (that's three in a row) before an appellate court in a case where the Ecuadorians are trying to seize company assets to recover their judgment. A panel from the Ontario Court of Appeal found that Chevron was illegally trying to impose an exorbitant $1 million costs order on the indigenous groups as a way to end the litigation.<br />
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**In Ecuador, the national indigenous federation (CONAIE) <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40635-Canada-s-National-Indigenous-Federation-Backs-Ecuadorian-Amazon-Communities-in-Lawsuit-to-Hold-Chevron-Accountable-for-Environmental-Damage" target="_blank">signed a political alliance</a> with Canada's national indigenous group (the Assembly of First Nations) -- which represents 634 chiefs and is considered the world's most powerful indigenous federation -- to hold Chevron accountable for its environmental destruction and violations of indigenous rights in both countries.<br />
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**Chevron shareholders furious with Watson's failure to resolve the Ecuador litigation dominated and disrupted the company's annual meeting in May. A resolution that cited Watson's "material mishandling" of the Ecuador litigation and rebuked him personally received a whopping 39% of shareholder support. It is no coincidence (see below) that Watson was pushed into "retirement" a few weeks later.<br />
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**In a related development, Chevron <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/08/chevron-ceo-watson-tarred-his-own.html" target="_blank">unceremoniously announced that Watson</a> (who is only 62) will be leaving Chevron in January of 2018. One reason, according to informed sources familiar with the thinking of Chevron's Board, is that he and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate grossly overspent on the Ecuador litigation. One Chevron law firm, Gibson Dunn, reportedly bilked the company out of more than $1 billion in fees. That firm is <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40655-Ecuadorians-Demand-Action-on-Chevron-s-Bribery-and-RICO-Fraud-From-U-S-Department-of-Justice" target="_blank">now under scrutiny</a> for engaging in potential criminal acts on behalf of Chevron.<br />
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**Chevron's highly flawed "racketeering" judgment from a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">severely compromised U.S. trial judge</a> is now backfiring against the company (see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0501-civil-society-groups-ask-scotus-to-reject-chevrons-attacks" target="_blank">here</a>). Evidence emerged that Chevron illegally paid its star witness, Alberto Guerra, at least $2 million in cash and benefits and coached him for 53 days before he presented false testimony. The witness later <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">admitted under oath</a> that he perjured himself (see this <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder_us_592dca76e4b047e77e4c3f0d" target="_blank">excellent blog</a> by Paul Paz y Mino of Amazon Watch) while a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" target="_blank">new forensic report</a> demonstrates unequivocally that Chevron's lawyers fabricated evidence to try to taint the Ecuador judgment.<br />
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**Chevron and some of its executives have gone so far into the gutter on Ecuador that they now face a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40655-Ecuadorians-Demand-Action-on-Chevron-s-Bribery-and-RICO-Fraud-From-U-S-Department-of-Justice" target="_blank">potential criminal probe</a> from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Ecuadorian communities sent <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-11-09-adc-doj-letter.pdf" target="_blank">a referral letter</a> to the DOJ demanding an investigation to determine whether the company's obstructionist tactics have crossed over into criminality. Worse, it appears that none other than Chevron lobbyist and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was in Ecuador in May to do some dirty work for for the company just prior to his arrest in the Mueller investigation.<br />
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**The indigenous groups also picked up some key allies during the year that are starting to hound Chevron. Rex Weyler, the legendary co-founder of Greenpeace, visited the affected area in Ecuador and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40451-Greenpeace-Founder-Rex-Weyler-Chevron-Showing-Disrespect-In-Canada-Toward-Amazon-Indigenous-Groups" target="_blank">accused Chevron</a> of committing "ecological crimes" and showing "disrespect" to the communities where it operated. Phil Fontaine, the thrice-elected leader of Canada's national indigenous federation, said it was <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40397-Chevron-Hit-Hard-In-Canada-Major-Indigenous-Leaders-Back-Collection-of-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-" target="_blank"> "unconscionable"</a> that the company has been allowed to get away with its environmental atrocities for so long.<br />
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Chevron notched a Pyrrhic victory of sorts when it used its army of lawyers to pressure individual judges in Argentina and Brazil to temporarily deny, on purely technical grounds, enforcement actions filed by the villagers. That was after Chevron officials engaged in highly suspicious "contacts" with local authorities that have the odor of corruption wafting in the air.<br />
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In Argentina, CEO Watson flew personally on his corporate jet to Buenos Aries to meet with the President. Suddenly, a new "investment" was announced. Five days later, Argentina's Supreme Court dismissed the enforcement action on technical grounds. Coincidence? In Brazil, a judge under pressure from the company denied a separate action after Chevron presented the false Guerra testimony.<br />
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No fewer than 21 appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/11/21-0-ecuadorian-aboriginals-are.html" target="_blank">have sided with the villagers</a>, while not a single appellate judge in either country has sided with Chevron. That's not a good track record for Watson in the two most important countries in the litigation.<br />
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Another sign of Watson's desperation is that Chevron is now seeking to recover $33 million in legal fees personally from the American human rights and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger. Donziger, a stalwart fighter for social justice who has worked with the affected communities in Ecuador for more than two decades, seems to be more than the company's <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">60 law firms and 2,000 legal personnel </a>care to handle. Watson's attempt to silence Donziger and intimidate the communities will not work.<br />
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Carmen Cartuche, who heads the Front for the Defense of the Amazon (the non-profit group that brought the case) had this to say: "Chevron's CEO can literally go to hell. Attacking our lawyers only makes him look weak and it will not work. We will never give up and ultimately Chevron will pay for the crimes it committed on our precious lands. In the meantime, Chevron's shareholders need to wake up to the fact that their company is being run by a greedy man with no long-term vision for Ecuador other than to attack those people who his company has poisoned."<br />
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Watson has turned his back on those in Ecuador to whom Chevron owes a major responsibility. This hard-line posture undermines Chevron's moral integrity and cuts into its bottom line by casting a cloud over the ability of the company to operate on a global scale without community-based resistance.<br />
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Here's hoping that 2018 is the year Chevron's incoming CEO, Mike Wirth, takes the necessary steps to address the company's Ecuador risk in a balanced manner. Imitating John Watson's scorched-earth approach would be a very bad move indeed.<br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-61317959703921472782017-11-09T11:38:00.001-05:002017-11-09T12:58:03.849-05:0021-0: Ecuadorian Communities Are Dominating Chevron In Canada's Appellate Courts Chevron's strategy to block enforcement of its $9.5 billion environmental liability in Canada is on the rocks. The company now has lost three straight decisions (see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40526-Chevron-Suffers-Major-Legal-Setback-As-Canada-Court-Denies-New-Attempt-to-Block-Ecuador-Enforcement-Action" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36541-Breaking-News-Canada-Orders-Enforcement-Action-to-Proceed-Against-Chevron-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">here</a>) in Canada's appellate courts to Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and farmer communities. To cover up this debacle, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate continues to bullsh*t -- sorry, mislead -- company shareholders about the growing risk faced by his company.<br />
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Chevron's string of losses in Canada comes after Mr. Pate hired several large Canadian law firms -- who send mostly older white men in suits to court -- to try to block indigenous peoples from collecting a judgment the oil giant was ordered to pay to remediate the extensive damage to the rainforest caused by its systematic dumping of oil waste from 1964 to 1992. As journalist Alexander Zaitchik <a href="https://talkonmain.com/ecuadorean-villagers-are-fighting-chevron-in-canada-and-winning" target="_blank">wrote in his latest article</a> on the case: "Ecuadorian Villagers Are Fighting Chevron In Canada -- And Winning."<br />
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The affected communities in Ecuador are not just winning, but dominating.<br />
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Thirteen appellate judges in Canada have ruled in their favor since the enforcement action was filed. In Ecuador, eight appellate judges have ruled in favor of the villagers. None have ruled for Chevron in either country. For those keeping score, that's 21-0 in favor of the villagers in appellate courts in Ecuador and Canada. (Here is a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">summary</a> of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.)<br />
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Chevron's latest reversal in Canada came last week when a three-judge panel on the Ontario Court of Appeal <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20171031-ONCA-decision-reversing-Epstein-costs-order.pdf" target="_blank">strongly criticized the company</a> for trying to end the Ecuador litigation by imposing a $1 million costs order on the indigenous groups. The decision was a stunning setback for Chevron.</div>
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Chevron's courtroom carnage in Canada dates to 2013 when Ecuador's Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the indigenous groups after an eight-year trial in the forum where the company insisted the trial be held. Chevron refused to pay the judgment and sold its assets in Ecuador, threatening the indigenous groups with a "lifetime of litigation" if they persisted.<br />
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To force compliance with the law, the affected communities then filed suit in Canada to seize some of Chevron's extensive holdings in the country. Chevron predictably tried to block that action on jurisdictional grounds as part of its campaign to obtain impunity.<br />
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Chevron lost the jurisdictional issue in spectacular fashion not only at the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36541-Breaking-News-Canada-Orders-Enforcement-Action-to-Proceed-Against-Chevron-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">Ontario Court of Appeal</a> but also in <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-09-04-chevron-v-yaiguaje-canada-decision.pdf" target="_blank">a stunning 92-page decision</a> issued by all seven justices on the country's Supreme Court. Both decisions were unanimous.<br />
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Stuck with an impending trial where it would have to put on the same fabricated evidence of "fraud" that it concocted in the United States to try to evade the Ecuador judgment, Chevron launched a new strategy to try to kill off the case by imposing the costs order.<br />
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It would be hard to imagine a greater travesty of justice than a costs order given that Chevron owes its victims $12 billion and refuses to pay. Further, the company surely spent more on legal fees to get the costs order than any amount it would have received from the costs order had it been allowed to stand. Again, that subterfuge was blocked in <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40526-Chevron-Suffers-Major-Legal-Setback-As-Canada-Court-Denies-New-Attempt-to-Block-Ecuador-Enforcement-Action" target="_blank">a third unanimous appellate opinion</a> issued last week.<br />
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A score of 21-0 in favor of the communities among appellate judges sounds more like a lopsided football score. In the annals of courtroom battles, it's virtually unprecedented -- not too far from Georgia Tech's infamous 222-0 thrashing of Cumberland College in 1916. That was the most lopsided score in college football history.<br />
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The only decision that Chevron has won in the long-running case is one based on clearly fraudulent evidence issued by a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">compromised U.S. judge Lewis A. Kaplan</a>. (See <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">this report</a> for full documentation of Chevron's fraud in Kaplan's courtroom.) Chevron tries to cite the Kaplan findings in its favor but that decision is now clearly backfiring against the company.<br />
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In Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal made it clear that it would have nothing to do with Kaplan's ruling despite tenacious <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/10/chevron-lawyer-larry-lowenstein.html" target="_blank">efforts by Chevron lawyer Larry Lowenstein</a> to act as if trumps the extensive findings of Ecuador's courts -- the only courts to actually hear the voluminous evidence of Chevron's toxic dumping and wrongdoing in the Amazon.<br />
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Chevron's next manuever in Canada is to try to eliminate its wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary (Chevron Canada) as a defendant in the enforcement action. The Ontario Court of Appeals will hear argument on that issue soon. If the past is prologue, the appellate tally will look even worse for Chevron after that matter gets resolved.<br />
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If all of this appears to have produced a little too much stress for Pate, that certainly would be understandable. Chevron's top lawyer has spent an estimated $2 billion of shareholder funds on the company's defense. Just days ago, he hastily issued a misleading press release claiming the Ecuador judgment was obtained "fraudulently". Chevron then backpedaled and re-issued the same release later in the day with softer (but still misleading) language.<br />
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Pate's idea is to try to leave the impression that Chevron is "winning" the case around the world. But an 0-21 record in appellate courts in the two most important jurisdictions is sort of hard to wash away no matter how aromatic the Chevron propaganda. Most companies would have fired their General Counsel long ago for such an atrocious track record when the stakes are so high.<br />
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Worse for Pate is that major Canadian citizens, such as <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40397-Chevron-Hit-Hard-In-Canada-Major-Indigenous-Leaders-Back-Collection-of-12b-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-" target="_blank">national indigenous leaders Phil Fontaine and Ed John</a> along with <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40378-Greenpeace-Co-founder-Rex-Weyler-Condemns-Chevron-for-Ecological-Crimes-in-Ecuador-s-Amazon-Region" target="_blank">Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler</a>, recently have lined up behind the Ecuadorian indigenous groups. British rock musician Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is also <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/10/10/roger-waters-lends-star-power-to-ecuadorians-95b-chevron-fight.html" target="_blank">speaking out publicly</a> against Chevron for its refusal to remediate its toxic pollution in Ecuador.<br />
<br />
In his article about the string of victories by the Ecuadorians in Canada, Zaitchik quoted the lead Ecuadorian lawyer for the indigenous groups, Patricio Salazar:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Chevron's entire strategy is based on obstruction and delay. Canadian courts need to put an end to this abuse of the civil justice system. It is unfortunate that this Chevron maneuver to impose a court tax on the people it poisoned got as far as it did."</i></blockquote>
Steven Donziger, Chevron's main U.S. critic who <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40354-Chevron-Trying-to-Bankrupt-U-S-Human-Rights-Lawyer-Who-Helped-Indigenous-Groups-Win-Historic-Judgment-In-Ecuador?tracking_source=rss" target="_blank">is being personally targeted </a>before Kaplan with a preposterous $33 million costs order, had this to say to Zaitchik:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"We are confident Chevron's scorched-earth strategy of obstruction and delay will soon run its course, and the company will pay the full amount necessary to clean up its awful pollution in Ecuador which continues to decimate indigenous peoples. Chevron has thrown at least $2 billion and 2,000 lawyers at us to try to obstruct court proceedings. That strategy has failed." </i> </blockquote>
Well said by both lawyers.<br />
<br />
Chevron's Board of Directors needs to think about getting rid of Pate so it can address its Ecuador problem before the repercussions start to negatively affect company operations around the globe. Absent action by the Chevron Board, it might be time for Chevron shareholders to take control of this rapidly deteriorating situation.<br />
<br />
What is definitely clear is that Chevron's current management team seems utterly clueless when it comes to Ecuador.Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-50775378041461635132017-11-01T12:41:00.005-04:002017-11-01T15:59:29.616-04:00The Takeaway: Chevron CEO Big Loser in Latest Canada Court Decision Over Ecuador Pollution JudgmentThe latest attempt by Chevron CEO John Watson to foist his company's RICO fraud from the United States onto Canadian courts just got slapped down by a three-judge panel from the Ontario Court of Appeal. This suggests the oil giant faces major hurdles in Canada in its campaign to evade enforcement of a $12 billion liability owed to Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and farmer communities.<br />
<br />
The latest Canada decision, which can be <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20171031-ONCA-decision-reversing-Epstein-costs-order.pdf" target="_blank">read in full here</a>, can only be described as a powerful rebuke to Watson, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate, and the company's army of Canadian lawyers who are being paid big bucks to obstruct and delay the case. Consider these key takeaways from the decision:<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>Chevron's SLAPP-style harassment attempt to impose a $1 million costs order on the impoverished indigenous groups always was a classic corporate maneuver to evade liability by trying to end the litigation without a resolution on the merits. The Appeals Court vacated the order in its entirety. Chevron General Counsel Pate sent at least 20 high-billing lawyers to court, implicitly disclosing that the company was spending more in legal fees to obtain the costs order than it would have received had it been granted. Worse, almost all of the Chevron lawyers were bland white men in suits whose job apparently is to block aboriginal peoples from collecting money they need to clean up an environmental disaster caused by Chevron. The fundamental disparity in resources – Chevron makes $225 billion annually while the indigenous groups live in poverty due largely to Chevron's pollution – could not have been more stark.<br /></li>
<li>Chevron's attempt to leverage U.S. Judge Kaplan's <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">completely flawed civil RICO</a> (or "racketeering") decision against the indigenous groups appears to have backfired yet again. It is becoming more apparent in Canada that the Kaplan decision is a debacle for Chevron and actually favors the aboriginal groups on a variety of levels. It is now seen as a product of <i>Chevron's fraud</i> in presenting false testimony from a disgraced witness paid $2 million who later admitted lying in court. No Canadian court wants to be told by a U.S. oil company that it must defer to a U.S. judge – especially one who conducted a hocus-pocus proceeding in favor of Chevron. Violating his duty of neutrality, Kaplan <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">obviously bent over backwards</a> to help the oil major. He also failed to disclose his own ethically dubious <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">investments in the company</a> when presiding over the RICO trial.<br /></li>
<li>The three Canadian judges implicitly rebuked both Judge Kaplan and the Canadian motions judge who relied heavily on Kaplan's erroneous decision to impose the costs order, while ignoring the Ecuadorian trial court decision at the heart of the case. The Ecuador decision, we might add, was issued by the very court where Chevron for years insisted the trial be held. The panel wrote: "There can be no doubt that the environmental devastation to the appellants' lands has severely hampered their ability to earn a livelihood. If we accept the findings that underlie the Ecuadorian judgment – findings that have not yet been undermined in our courts – Texaco Inc. contributed to the appellants' misfortune." You can say that again – <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">cancer rates in the area are skyrocketing</a>, and untold numbers of people already have perished due to Chevron's refusal to abide by the Ecuadorian court order.<br /></li>
<li>The Canadian court also found that Chevron obviously doesn't need its costs paid. How obvious is this? The company already has used at least <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> since the inception of the case. It grosses $225 billion per year. And yet, nary a word was written in all prior decisions on the issue. The Canadian panel confronted it directly: "Chevron Corp. and Chevron Canada have annual gross revenues in the billions of dollars. It is difficult to believe that either of these two corporations... require protection for cost awards that amount or could amount to a miniscule fraction of their annual revenues."<br /></li>
<li>The decision was also an implicit rebuke to the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/10/chevron-lawyer-larry-lowenstein.html" target="_blank">duplicitous Larry Lowenstein</a>, Chevron's lead lawyer in Canada and a partner in the prestigious Osler law firm. Lowenstein made a cameo before the appeals panel and tried to peddle the Kaplan decision as being the final word on the case. As said, that decision is a product of Chevron's fraud. Lowenstein used Kaplan to try to dupe Canada's judges, but they would have none of it. Osler cannot be so desperate for business that it would stoop to this level of "service" for a company known in environmental circles as a major polluter.</li>
</ul>
While the latest decision removes a major roadblock for the Ecuadorian indigenous groups, there is still substantial work to be done even after five years of litigation in Canada's enforcement courts. Chevron no doubt has many tricks up its sleeve, including trying to hide its Canadian assets in wholly-owned subsidiaries. Courts in Canada need keep their door open to human rights victims and resolve the claims in this matter without further indulging the company's dirty tricks campaign.<br />
<br />
Five years already is way too long for any enforcement action, much less one where thousands of indigenous lives hang in the balance and where a final judgment has been rendered in the preferred jurisdiction of the debtor.Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-78223412911204375202017-10-16T12:30:00.004-04:002017-10-17T11:15:00.505-04:00Chevron Lawyer Larry Lowenstein Continues to Mislead Canadian Courts About Company's Fraud in Ecuador To help Chevron block enforcement of the Ecuador environment judgment in Canada, company lawyer and <a href="http://www.osler.com/en/team/larry-lowenstein" target="_blank">Osler partner Larry Lowenstein</a> flat-out lied last week to a panel of three judges on the Ontario Court of Appeal in Toronto. It is the vulnerable indigenous communities in Ecuador who pay the price for Lowenstein's bad form in service of one of the world's worst corporate polluters.<br />
<br />
Lowenstein made an interesting cameo for Chevron last Wednesday before the appeals panel in Toronto that heard argument over a $1 million costs order the oil major is trying to impose on the impoverished indigenous groups. Those indigenous groups in 2013 won a $9.5 billion environmental judgment against Chevron, as determined by three layers of courts in Ecuador in the venue where the company insisted the trial be held and where it had accepted jurisdiction.<br />
<br />
Since then, Chevron has hired <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">60 law firms and used roughly 2,000 lawyers</a> to evade paying the judgment. It also sued an American human rights lawyer for the Ecuadorians for $60 billion before dropping all money damages claims to avoid a jury. It is now suing the same lawyer (Steven Donziger) for $33 million in fees, trying to bankrupt him. (For background, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40354-Chevron-Trying-to-Bankrupt-U-S-Human-Rights-Lawyer-Who-Helped-Indigenous-Groups-Win-Historic-Judgment-In-Ecuador" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
This is how Chevron rolls. Without lawyers willing to do its bidding, Chevron could never get away with such blatant misconduct.<br />
<br />
It is preposterous to think a large oil company that generates $225 billion in annual revenue needs the "protection" of a $1 million costs order against impoverished indigenous groups. Chevron no doubt is spending more money on legal work to get the costs order than the amount sought in the order. This is clearly another Chevron tactic to deny its adversaries access to the justice system.<br />
<br />
Chevron's use of the costs order against indigenous groups is a vital part of the company's global intimidation model. It is a brazen attempt to close the courthouse doors to communities trying to force Chevron to clean up the mess the company left on their ancestral lands. This is consistent with a threat the company made in 2009 promising the indigenous groups "a lifetime of litigation" if they continued to pursue their claims.<br />
<br />
"We will fight this case until hell freezes over, and then we will fight it out on the ice," said Charles James, Chevron's former General Counsel.<br />
<br />
As the latest front man for Chevron's impunity campaign, Lowenstein claimed to the appeals panel that the Ecuador judgment was based on an "egregious fraud" because that's what a pro-business U.S. judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, determined after a lopsided "racketeering" trial held in 2013. During that trial, the court refused to consider any evidence of Chevron's environmental contamination. And Kaplan <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">held undisclosed investments</a> in Chevron during the proceeding, <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2013/05/attorney-john-kekers-blistering.html" target="_blank">called a "Dickensian farce"</a> by noted U.S. trial lawyer John Keker.<br />
<br />
(Here is a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39995-New-Report-Details-How-U-S-Courts-Endorsed-Chevron-s-Fabricated-Evidence-In-Historic-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">press release</a> and a detailed <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">33-page report</a> documenting Kaplan's blatant bias against the Ecuadorian villagers and his erroneous findings.)<br />
<br />
In speaking before the appellate panel, Lowenstein ignored the overwhelming evidence against Chevron in the Ecuador proceeding. He ignored the false testimony used by his client in the RICO matter and obfuscated evidence of the company's fraud in Ecuador and the United States. His courtroom act was designed to dupe the Canadian judges into thinking Chevron was the victim of the people it poisoned, rather than the other way around.<br />
<br />
Lowenstein also tried to leave the impression that the decision against Chevron in Ecuador can never be enforced because of the one batshit crazy ruling by Kaplan, the compromised U.S. trial judge who seemed to think he had the authority to overturn Ecuador's entire Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
Consider what Lowenstein failed to disclose to the appellate panel about Chevron's role in creating a catastrophe in the rainforest so massive it is called the "Amazon Chernobyl" by locals:<br />
<br />
**Chevron was found by three layers of courts in Ecuador to have dumped billions of gallons of oil waste into the rainforest over a two-decade period, decimating indigenous groups and causing numerous cancer deaths. The court decisions were based on 105 technical evidentiary reports. <span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Here is </span><a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">a summary</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> of the overwhelming evidence; </span><a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CA2-brief-corrections-RC4.pdf" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">a legal brief</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> that explains the history of the company's dumping and cover-up; and </span><a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">a summary</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> of the high cancer rates.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">**Initially sued by indigenous villagers in New York in 1993, Chevron praised Ecuador's justice system thinking it could engineer a political dismissal of the case by shifting it to the South American nation. With the scientific evidence mounting in its preferred forum of Ecuador, Chevron sold its assets to evade paying the judgment. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">**Ultimately, Chevron was ordered to pay $9.5 billion in damages and costs. This amount is a pittance compared to the roughly $50 billion BP has paid for its much smaller Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">**Chevron retaliated by suing the indigenous groups and their lawyers before Kaplan, who invited the company to file the action. Chevron then made a </span><a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">mockery of justice</a> by <span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">dropping all damages claims on the eve of trial to avoid a jury. Chevron also bribed a witness with $2 million to claim that the judgment in Ecuador was "ghostwritten" -- testimony that since has been </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">proven </a>false but was nonetheless adopted by Kaplan<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">**The bribed Chevron witness, Alberto Guerra, later admitted under oath that he repeatedly lied before Kaplan. Separately, a </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">forensic examination by the American expert J. Christopher Racich</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> demonstrated that the Ecuador trial judge wrote the decision on his office computer, contradicting Guerra's false claim that it had been given to the trial judge on a flash drive.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">**In total, 18 judges appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada have ruled in favor of the villagers and rejected Chevron's "fraud" claims. (The Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused to review Kaplan's erroneous findings, as did the U.S. Supreme Court.) </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Lowenstein also ignores that </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39958-Environmental-Groups-Condemn-Chevron-Before-U-S-Supreme-Court-for-Faking-Evidence-in-Pollution-Case" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">17 prominent human rights groups</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> and </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39978-19-Scholars-Urge-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Condemn-Chevron-for-Violating-International-Law-In-Amazon-Pollution-Case" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">19 international law scholars</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> have sided with the indigenous groups against Chevron.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Because of its corrupt acts and disdain for the rule of law, Chevron now finds itself in serious trouble. It faces possible criminal and civil jeopardy for its cover-up in addition to its $12 billion environmental liability (rising $300 million per year because of interest) to the people of Ecuador. Company management also </span><a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40054-Chevron-CEO-Suffers-Major-Rebuke-Over-12-Billion-Ecuador-Liability-At-Annual-Shareholder-Meeting-" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">faces a shareholder revolt</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"> over its unethical behavior.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Another big Lowenstein whopper before the Toronto court came when he claimed that <a href="https://www.donzigerlaw.com/" target="_blank">Donziger</a>, one of the American lawyers for the villagers, "controls" monies that will be deposited in trust for a clean-up.The trust is actually controlled by the affected communities, not their lawyers. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Lowenstein's little speech reminded us of the bit part played years ago by a professor from Notre Dame who also allowed himself to be used by Chevron for money. That professor, Douglas Cassell, was slapped down by Notre Dame's administration for hiding the fact he was shilling for the oil giant while trying to act like a disinterested scholar. For background, see </span><a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/09/chevron-paying-notre-dame-human-rights.html" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); border: 0px; color: #e94f1d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: Enriqueta, georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">The personal reputation of Lowenstein, and by extension that of the Osler partnership, is in play. The American law firm Gibson Dunn suffered a <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">huge setback</a> recently after its own unethical work of behalf of Chevron in the United States was exposed. Osler obviously is Chevron's answer to Gibson Dunn in Canada -- a law firm with a willingness to cross the ethical line to "rescue" a client from a scandal of its own making. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Lowenstein's partners at Osler naturally claim they run one of the leading business law firms in Canada. If misleading courts and shareholders is how Osler deploys its legal skill, then those partners might need to rethink their business model.</span> They also </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.95); color: #36312d; font-family: "enriqueta" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15px;">might disclose how much the firm charges Chevron for this tawdry service. </span>Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-17640870326914935782017-10-12T18:16:00.002-04:002017-10-13T09:20:39.297-04:00Us and Them: Affected Peoples vs. Chevron in Canada<p>Reposted from <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/1012-us-and-them-affected-peoples-vs-chevron-in-canada"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a><br />
</p><p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dIITR-tDsiE?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&showsearch=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
</p><p>The latest chapter in the decades-long struggle seeking justice for Chevron's crimes in Ecuador is <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0919-calling-chevrons-bluff" target="_blank">taking place in Canada</a> right now. Unfortunately, as the years grind by the issues being debated get further and further away from the substantive problems of environmental contamination and human suffering, and the process becomes stuck in a legal quicksand of Chevron's design. The hearings before the Ontario Court of Appeals this week were a perfect example of that.</p><p>Amazon Watch continues to bear witness to this ongoing perversion of justice, both because we ourselves are a target of Chevron's attacks, and also because the cynical strategy the oil giant employs is a real and present danger to corporate accountability work everywhere. For that reason we attended the hearings in Toronto this week along with artist and activist Roger Waters, founding member of Pink Floyd. Waters spoke to the media to <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/rocker-roger-waters-lends-star-power-to-ecuadorians-9-5b-chevron-fight-1.3626406" target="_blank">express his outrage</a> at Chevron's endless legal maneuvers to escape justice for its crimes.</p><p>"It's a fundamental question of whether corporations like Chevron ... should be allowed to use their financial muscle to destroy people with an absolutely vital claim to reparations for damages that were caused to them over many years," Waters said before the hearing. "The way Chevron has behaved here is against everything that any of us might believe society ought to be like."</p><p>This week was supposed to see the beginning of the appeal of the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2017/0120-ecuador-villagers-celebrate-victory-vow-to-seize-chevron-assets-after-canada-court-decision" target="_blank">previous decision in this case</a> - which was mixed (upholding corporate separateness but granting the Ecuadorians the right to a trial to challenge Chevron's completely unfounded allegations of fraud). Instead the Ecuadorians were forced to confront Chevron's demand that the communities come up with almost $1 million as a security fee for the appeal to proceed. This is yet another legal delay tactic from Chevron in their never ending hope that the people they harmed will either give up, run out of funds, or simply die off before they can force Chevron to pay up.</p><p>In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that the Ecuadorians could seek enforcement of the $9.5 billion verdict in Canada. Chevron's Canadian subsidiary, Chevron-Canada, holds approximately $15 billion in assets and since Chevron famously fled Ecuador with its assets to avoid paying (and invented an elaborate lie about fraud and bribery so they could countersue in the U.S. to make enforcement there very difficult), the Ecuadorians have been forced to pursue Chevron to Canada like a fugitive deadbeat.</p><p>Try to wrap your mind around this: the third largest corporation in the U.S., after spending billions to drag out a cut-and-dry case of deliberate environmental contamination for decades, is now demanding the the Ecuadorian communities pay $1 million for the right to an appeal which could finally permit seizure of their assets to pay for a clean-up.</p><p>To quote The Dark Side of the Moon: "And if your head explodes with dark forebodings, too..." yeah, that's an appropriate reaction at this point.</p><p>The lead lawyer for the Ecuadorians, Alan Lenczner, pointed out quite clearly that this was nothing more than a stunt by Chevron, stating that, "Chevron is one of largest companies in the world with over 1,500 subsidiaries, $225 billion in annual revenue, which is $1 billion a day for each working day, with a profit of $25 billion annually, working out to $1 million per DAY is hardly in need of protection!" In fact, just counting Chevron and Chevron-Canada's legal team in the room this week, there were at least twenty lawyers and their staff. The cost for their travel and billing right there is more than the security fund itself! That alone proves this is nothing but a punitive legal subterfuge, to our eyes.</p><p>But the hearing this week also had a new element which has previously played only a minor role in the several years this case has dragged on in Canada. The introduction of Peter Grant, a renowned Canadian aboriginal rights lawyer who recently helped to win a major case before the country's Supreme Court, had a profound impact on the proceedings. Peter made it clear to the appellate panel of Justices Hoy, Cronk, and Hourigan that this entire exercise was fundamentally an issue of access to justice for indigenous peoples. Grant, who had <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-ecuador-pollution-1.4310228" target="_blank">recently visited the Ecuadorian Amazon</a> to witness the contamination along with Canadian indigenous leaders Phil Fontaine and Ed John and <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/chevron-amazon-indigenous-people-legal-case-canada/blog/60241/" target="_blank">Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler</a>, spoke with firsthand experience of what effect this order would have on the people still suffering today. This has even more resonance considering that <a href="https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2017/09/canadas-treatment-of-indigenous-rights/" target="_blank">Canada recently signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a> and there is much more respect in Canadian political discourse for indigenous peoples.</p><p>And that's the genuine issue that not only the Canadian appeals court but Chevron and its lawyers should be made to face every single day. People are still dying from the deliberate contamination caused by Chevron in the Amazon. This is not an historic case about reparation for past harms, but a very real and urgent need for clean-up today. Every day Chevron evades paying for that clean-up, more people in the region risk sickness and death. It must end here. As Roger Waters said, "if Chevron can go on fighting this for another twenty years, and they will if they can, what does that say about us as a human race, that we would allow such a thing? It says that we've lost our grip on the reins of civilization."</p>The Blog Teamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18125552649996387103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-18126972945364251972017-08-29T20:51:00.001-04:002017-08-29T20:51:12.383-04:00Chevron CEO Watson Leaves a Legacy of Toxic Waste<p>Reposted from <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0829-chevron-ceo-watson-leaves-a-legacy-of-toxic-waste"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a><br />
</p><p><img style="width:100%;height:auto" src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/2017-watson-wanted-poster.jpg" alt="Wanted: Chevron CEO John Watson" /><br />
</p><p>After seven dreadful years, Chevron CEO John Watson recently made a surprise announcement that he is finally slinking off with his tail between his legs. Yet the world will continue to suffer from the disastrous effects of his terrible decisions for many years to come. Amazon Watch's history with Watson <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2001/0426-chevrons-board-urged-to-disclose-texacos-liabilities-in-the-ecuadorian-amazon-in-the-merger-proceedings-evidence-detailing-more-than-three-hundred-and-fifty-contaminated-sites-handed-to-chevrons-chairman" target="_blank">dates back to Chevron's merger with Texaco</a>. John Watson was a principal architect of that merger, and at a Chevron shareholder meeting we presented him with a great deal of information about <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/" target="_blank">Texaco's environmental disaster in Ecuador</a> and warned that if the merger went through then Chevron would necessarily assume all liability to clean up the worst oil-related disaster in history. Watson ignored us.<br />
</p><p>In 2010, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2009/1217-letter-from-atossa-soltani-to-new-chevron-ceo-john-watson" target="_blank">Watson became CEO</a> on the eve of the largest environmental judgment ever won against an oil company, in which Chevron was ordered to pay $9.5 billion to clean up Texaco's toxic mess. Chevron lost that trial after years of efforts to delay and derail it, and after thousands of pages of scientific evidence – much of which provided by Chevron's own experts – demonstrated the damage caused by Texaco's deliberate dumping and shoddy operations. At the time of that judgement, Watson had another chance to listen to<a href="https://youtu.be/kmpFrtXVHOc"> the appeals of the people of Ecuador</a> and finally do the right thing.<br />
</p><p>Not only did Watson refuse to take responsibility and clean up the toxic waste still poisoning these communities, but he focused the full weight of Chevron's legal and public relations might on demonizing the Ecuadorians and their lawyers, and he even countersued them, alleging extortion. The company is even seeking $32 million in legal fees in an <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.mx/2017/08/haunted-by-ecuador-judgment-chevron-now.html" target="_blank">attempt to personally bankrupt Steven Donziger</a>, a key member of the legal team that achieved the historic judgment in Ecuador. We at Amazon Watch were <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/standing-amazon-watch" target="_blank">pulled into Chevron's sham suit as an alleged "co-conspirator"</a> for standing with the communities who sued to clean up their homes. It's estimated that, to date, Chevron has spent as much as $2 billion just to avoid cleaning up the toxic waste that Texaco admitted dumping in Ecuador. <br />
</p><p>In what some see as an existential threat to corporate accountability work in the U.S., Watson and his team also sought to <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/1218-chevrons-threat-to-open-society" target="_blank">trample the First Amendment rights of anyone who had ever dared to speak out about the company</a>: journalists, bloggers, lawyers, advocacy organizations, activists, and even its own shareholders. Chevron's legal and public relations teams built a practice on intimidating its critics. <br />
</p><p>During his time as CEO, Chevron even approved payments to company witnesses and <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">bribed them to falsify evidence and testimony in U.S. federal court</a>. With these tactics, CEO Watson helped pave the way for a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40423794/new-greenpeace-campaign-accuses-corporations-of-using-law-suits-to-silence-protest" target="_blank">new wave of "racketeering" lawsuits</a> that have since been filed by other corporations against a variety of environmental and human rights organizations, such as our friends at Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. <br />
</p><p>Under Watson's misleadership, Chevron has distinguished itself as the <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0127-chevron-crowned-worlds-worst" target="_blank">worst U.S. oil company</a> by eliminating its renewable energy program, closing its corporate social responsibility department, and attempting to influence politics by <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/05/361875792/chevron-spends-big-and-loses-big-in-a-city-council-race" target="_blank">spending more on super-PACs</a> than any other corporation immediately after the Citizens United decision.<br />
</p><p>In short, it would be hard for Chevron to do worse than Watson and we are thrilled to see him go. The company is still facing a collection action in Canada for its $9.5 billion debt to the people of Ecuador. A new CEO will have an opportunity to finally break with Chevron's abusive past and respect the rule of law and the environment.<br />
</p><p>Watson spent his time as CEO trying to make it harder for the environmental and human rights community to challenge corporate power, but we stand united and will continue to hold Chevron to account, no matter who is at the helm.<br />
</p>The Blog Teamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18125552649996387103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-70111538666302491192017-08-23T12:54:00.002-04:002017-08-24T11:39:20.100-04:00Chevron CEO Watson Tarred His Own Legacy by Fumbling Environmental Issues Burdened with a series of intractable problems, Chevron CEO John Watson announced this week that he is stepping down after seven years at the helm of America's second-largest energy company. He will be remembered far more for saddling Chevron with huge environmental liabilities than for delivering value to shareholders.<br />
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Watson's legacy is to leave Chevron with a bleak long-term prognosis. While the fossil fuel industry faces unprecedented structural pressures, Chevron is arguably in a worse position than its peers. Watson <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0e7af994-878c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787?accessToken=zwAAAV4PVrfYkc8OevmUh4wR59O_UOHCObRXhw.MEUCIHcZygxkp_bMtouQVSYP9gTybfM3Kpcc9vu3T5OXnSzSAiEA3jWGZ5fHGA4VUGxAKI7aqRxSqkcCgJlCPyiuu7EMTh0&sharetype=gift" target="_blank">made a disastrous bet in Australia</a> on the Gorgon natural gas project, a move that landed him in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-chevron-taxavoidance-idUSKCN1AY0DV" target="_blank">major trouble with tax authorities</a> and saddled Chevron with at least $20 billion in cost overruns.<br />
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But let's focus on Watson's most obvious mistake, Ecuador.<br />
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Ecuador is the place where Watson literally has blood on his hands for failing to address the fallout from Texaco's deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest when it operated six huge oil fields from 1964 to 1992. The dumping -- called the Amazon Chernobyl by locals -- decimated indigenous nationalities and continues to kill <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/01/chevrons-massive-pollution-in-ecuador.html" target="_blank">scores of innocent people</a> as confirmed by <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">multiple academic studies</a> and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">various court rulings</a>.<br />
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While Chevron left Ecuador in 1992, the company's toxic legacy -- including roughly 1,000 open-air toxic waste pits -- continues to cause grievous harm to the local population. Under Watson's recommendation, Chevron bought Texaco in 2001 and now owns the Ecuador problem.<br />
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A successful litigation brought by local communities to repair the damage has captured the imagination of the world. The legal battle led to a $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador in the venue where Chevron accepted jurisdiction and where it had insisted the trial be held. Chevron could have settled the claims for a relative pittance years ago. But under Watson, the Ecuador liability has now ballooned to $12 billion (with interest) in Canada, where the villagers are enforcing their judgment.<br />
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In Canada, the country's <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">Supreme Court in 2015 unanimously backed</a> an effort to try to seize Chevron assets to pay for the clean-up. Major <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39978-19-Scholars-Urge-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Condemn-Chevron-for-Violating-International-Law-In-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">international law scholars</a> and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39948-Civil-Society-Groups-Ask-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Reject-Chevron-s-Attempts-to-Undermine-Amazon-Pollution-Case?tracking_source=rss" target="_blank">civil society organizations</a>, including <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/" target="_blank">Amazon Watch</a>, also have backed the villagers.<br />
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Watson was the Chevron executive in charge of merging with Texaco back in 2001. At the time, environmental groups such as Amazon Watch <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2009/1217-letter-from-atossa-soltani-to-new-chevron-ceo-john-watson" target="_blank">warned him</a> about the massive pending liability in Ecuador; he ignored the warnings, which perhaps explains why he doubled down and started attacking his victims and their lawyers. He also <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38421-Chevron-s-Star-Witness-in-Retaliatory-RICO-Case-Recants-Accusations-Against-Ecuadorians-and-Their-Counsel" target="_blank">ordered a $2 million payment be made to a witness to lie</a> in order to help the company cover-up its disastrous policy.<br />
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At the time Watson was director of Chevron's acquisitions, Chevron grossly overpaid for Texaco's assets given that there was no accounting for the Ecuador clean-up costs. But arrogance is Watson's hallmark personality trait.<br />
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Angry at being challenged by shareholders and activists, Watson and his General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate launched the most expensive corporate "defense" in history. They threatened the Ecuadorian villagers with a "lifetime of litigation" if they persisted. They had <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/28/chevron_has_5_activists_arrested_and" target="_blank">five shareholders arrested </a>at an annual meeting after they challenged the company's Ecuador policy. Chevron's lawyers even fabricated evidence to secure a favorable "judgment" in a farcical non-jury trial in U.S. federal court, making <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">a mockery of justice</a> in the process.<br />
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A Chevron official wrote an email saying Watson's main litigation strategy was to "demonize" Steven Donziger, the tenacious Harvard-educated human rights lawyer who has led the fight against Chevron for years. Donziger personally deposed Watson in 2013 in New York. Although the pro-Chevron judge sealed the deposition -- a ridiculous and unnecessary move -- we can assert with certainty that Watson came across as an angry and petty man.<br />
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Watson even told Forbes he would stop the Ecuador litigation only when Donziger and the lawyers "give up" and quit the case. That's an intimidation strategy, not a litigation strategy worthy of a major public company that purports to behave ethically.<br />
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Watson tapped into shareholder resources to hire at least <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">2,000 lawyers and 60 law firms</a> to try to beat back the courageous indigenous villagers -- another massive cost suck that suggests Gorgon was not Watson's only spending problem. In his latest maneuver, Watson has ordered his lawyers to illegally <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/08/haunted-by-ecuador-judgment-chevron-now.html" target="_blank">try to collect $32 million in legal fees</a> from longtime nemesis Donziger.<br />
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Chevron's refinery in the California town of Richmond is another example of Watson's short-sightedness. <a href="https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/01/29/chevron-management-failures-led-to-massive-august-2012-explosion-in-richmond" target="_blank">Major fires at the refinery</a> have spewed so much toxic waste that 15,000 local residents have been forced to receive medical attention. Rather than shut down or at least update the refinery, Watson tried to take over the town by <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/10/08/chevron-spends-big-on-richmond-city-council-election/" target="_blank">financing a slate of candidates</a> for city council while secretly funding an on-line newspaper to spew pro-Chevron propaganda.<br />
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Under Watson's leadership, Chevron has tried to buy its way out of its litigation problems by spending heavily in the political world rather than compensate the company's victims. Watson ordered Chevron to be a major donor to the Trump inauguration and other Koch-funded initiatives designed to increase corporate power. Watson also donated millions of Chevron dollars to the Clinton Foundation and the U.S. State Department during the Obama Administration at the same time his team was inappropriately lobbying to try to kill off the Ecuador liability.<br />
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Watson was willing to take extraordinary risks for the leader of a public company. His corrupt witness payments to Guerra and another Chevron employee, the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2012/01/diego-borja-on-chevron-dole.html" target="_blank">infamous Diego Borja</a>, continue to this day. With Watson's blessing, Chevron also spent at least $15 million on the corporate espionage firm Kroll to spy on Donziger and his colleagues and to try to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/08/a-spy-in-the-jungle/60770/" target="_blank">enlist independent journalists to go undercover</a> in Ecuador on the company's behalf.<br />
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Chevron's next CEO will need to clean up Watson's dastardly mess in Ecuador. Indigenous people are still dying in the Amazon because of the company's failure to address its toxic legacy. It's long past time for Chevron's Board to admit that Watson only has made matters worse both for the people of Ecuador and the company's own shareholders.<br />
Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-72759120342538510222017-08-14T13:05:00.002-04:002017-08-15T20:50:19.259-04:00Haunted by Ecuador Judgment, Chevron Now Trying to Impose $32 Million "Fine" On Lawyer Who Beat It In CourtWhile fossil fuel giant Chevron still refuses to pay its $12 billion environmental judgment to the indigenous groups it poisoned in Ecuador, company CEO John Watson apparently has found the time to try to impose a massive $32 million liability on the solo human rights lawyer who beat his company in court.<br />
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As background, it is undeniable that Harvard Law grad and American human rights advocate <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a> did something so extraordinary to hold Chevron accountable for its environmental crimes that Watson decided to launch a crusade against him. Working against huge odds with a team of Ecuadorian rainforest leaders and local lawyers, Donziger spent eight years (2003 to 2011) coordinating the litigation in Ecuador against Chevron over the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of chemical-laced oil waste</a> into the rainforest. The case took place in Ecuador at Chevron's insistence and the company accepted jurisdiction there.<br />
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After overcoming Chevron's repeated attempts to sabotage the proceeding, a court in 2011 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/world/americas/15ecuador.html" target="_blank">found the company guilty</a> and imposed a $19 billion judgment that was halved when a punitive damages penalty was struck. (The amount is now $12 billion because of interest.) It is without doubt the largest environmental judgment in history from a single court case. Chevron's toxic dumping in Ecuador decimated indigenous groups and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">caused an outbreak of cancer</a> that has killed or threatens to kill thousands of innocent people. Locals call the catastrophe the "Amazon Chernobyl; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-dematteis/chevron-ecuador_b_1421407.html" target="_blank">this photo essay</a> by acclaimed journalist Lou Demettais captures the brutal human cost of what can only be described as a deliberate act of industrial homicide.<br />
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The Ecuador trial-level decision against Chevron -- based on <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">voluminous evidence</a> including 105 technical evidentiary reports -- was affirmed unanimously by two separate appellate courts in Ecuador, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-11-12-supreme-court-ecuador-decision-english.pdf" target="_blank">including by the country's Supreme Court</a>. Not even Chevron disputes that it dumped the toxic waste or that it was the exclusive operator of the oil fields. But to evade paying the judgment from its preferred forum, Chevron tried to cover up its criminal misconduct.<br />
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Chevron hired<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank"> 60 law firms and roughly 2,000 lawyers</a> and investigators in part to cook up fake evidence to file a "racketeering" (or RICO) case against Donziger, Ecuadorian lawyer Pablo Fajardo, community leader Luis Yanza, and all 47 of the courageous villagers from the affected area who stepped forward as class representatives. As part of its intimidation model, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate promised the indigenous groups and their lawyers a "lifetime of litigation" if they persisted.<br />
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Part of that model was to retaliate against Donziger personally back in New York federal court in an unprecedented collateral attack on a foreign judgment. Another Chevron goal was to use the retaliation case to try to intimidate lawyers and supporters of the villagers with the threat of harassing lawsuits. Chevron also peddled its false narrative from the case to the financial markets to distract from the Ecuador liability and to prop up the company's stock price.<br />
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A distinguished member of two bar associations, Donziger is a solo practitioner who along with environmental groups such as Amazon Watch and shareholder activist Simon Billenness has driven the accountability campaign against Chevron for over two decades.<br />
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Described as a man of "Herculean tenacity" by Bloomberg, Donziger is also known for creating a new human rights funding paradigm that has allowed the impoverished indigenous groups of Ecuador to sustain their case for years against one of the world's richest companies. The private financing model alone surely terrifies Chevron. Fossil fuel companies are not used to their victims being represented by top-flight litigators like Canada's Alan Lenczner or Brazil's Sergio Bermudes, who are trying to seize Chevron assets to force it to comply with the rule of law and pay the judgment.<br />
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If Chevron's so-called "retaliation" case against Donziger and the Ecuadorians was designed to silence their campaign, it obviously failed. Left with little to show for its massive expenditures on RICO given that the villagers are successfully enforcing their judgment in Canada -- with the Canada Supreme Court already <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">ruling in their favor</a> -- Chevron is now trying to "punish" Donziger back home. (For more on Chevron's difficulties in Canada from the Ecuador liability, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
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Chevron's attacks only serve to underscore the extent of the bullying approach being used. In fact, it is no less than staggering to see the extent of Chevron's cowardice in the context of its attacks against Donziger and the Ecuadorian indigenous groups. These attacks happened after Chevron sold off all of its assets in Ecuador as the evidence against it mounted.<br />
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Chevron generates revenue at roughly $200 billion per annum and pays its top lawyers at the firm Gibson Dunn $1,500 per hour; Donziger lives and works out of a small apartment in Manhattan while most of his clients are lucky to make $200 monthly. When Donziger and the villagers challenged Chevron's claim that the entire Ecuador lawsuit was "sham" litigation, the company dropped part of its claim to avoid producing internal documents related to its toxic dumping. (See <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-donziger/chevrons-amazon-chernobyl_b_7435926.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/641305/opinion-donziger-s-case-against-chevron-in-his-own-words" target="_blank">here</a> for articles Donziger has written about the case of the indigenous groups against Chevron.)<br />
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After having sued Donziger for roughly $60 billion, Chevron dropped all damages claims on the eve of trial in what can only be described as a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36091-Bombshell-Retreat-Chevron-Seeks-to-Drop-60-Billion-in-Damages-In-Ecuador-Case" target="_blank">bombshell retreat</a> to avoid a jury of impartial fact finders. While that move took away any remaining legitimacy from Chevron's bogus case, it did allow the proceeding to be tried alone by a pro-corporate judge (Lewis A. Kaplan) who repeatedly made comments from the bench that the villagers interpreted as racist. Chevron also hired the corporate espionage firm Kroll to spy on Donziger while deploying at least 114 lawyers to fight him in court.<br />
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Under the U.S. Constitution, anybody sued for money damages has the right to a trial by jury. By dropping its damages claims out of fear Donziger would defeat its lawyers before a jury, Chevron <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36091-Bombshell-Retreat-Chevron-Seeks-to-Drop-60-Billion-in-Damages-In-Ecuador-Case" target="_blank">bailed on the main part of its case</a> to leave the dirty work to Judge Kaplan. One of Kaplan's first moves was to exclude the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">scientific evidence of pollution</a> used to convict Chevron in Ecuador.<br />
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Judge Kaplan also prevented Donziger from telling <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Donziger-Witness-Statement-Final.pdf" target="_blank">his side of the story</a> in open court as part of a series of rulings that seemed more in sync with a judicial apparatchik in Putin's Russia than a neutral federal judge. For a comprehensive summary of how Chevron made a mockery of justice in Kaplan's court, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and read <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CA2-brief-corrections-RC4.pdf" target="_blank">Donziger's appellate brief</a>. Prominent attorney John Keker also accused Kaplan of showing "implacable hostility" toward Donziger and allowing the matter to "degenerate into a Dickensian farce" unworthy of any civilized country.<br />
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Chevron also used the Kaplan proceeding to unveil a new corporate playbook: invest massive sums to try to weaponize the American civil justice system to flog those holding it accountable. Chevron issued subpoenas to more than 100 environmental activists, bloggers, and academics who had some connection to the Ecuadorian communities. Yet at bottom Chevron had nothing other than a series of procedural complaints about the conduct of the Ecuador trial that already had been either corrected or rejected by Ecuador's courts.<br />
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With virtually nothing to work with, Chevron's lawyers became so desperate that they paid an admittedly corrupt Ecuadorian witness <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38468-Chevron-Agrees-to-Pay-Huge-Salary-and-Income-Taxes-of-Key-Witness-Who-Perjured-Himself-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">at least $2 million in cash and benefits</a> to lie in Kaplan's court. That witness, Alberto Guerra, claimed Chevron lost the case because Donziger had arranged for a bribe to be paid to the trial judge so that his Ecuadorian legal team could "ghostwrite" the judgment. Guerra's claims have been <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" target="_blank">thoroughly debunked by scientific evidence</a> and rejected by three layers of courts in Ecuador, and by two appellate courts in Canada. Guerra <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38421-Chevron-s-Star-Witness-in-Retaliatory-RICO-Case-Recants-Accusations-Against-Ecuadorians-and-Their-Counsel" target="_blank">later admitted under oath that he had lied</a> repeatedly on the stand before Kaplan.<br />
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Kangaroo proceedings clearly produce kangaroo results that continue to haunt Chevron.<br />
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Chevron CEO Watson and his besieged General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate still stand by the fake "bribe" story. They pump millions of dollars of company funds into the Gibson Dunn law firm to propagate the core falsehood. Kaplan also refuses to set aside his ludicrous decision that the Ecuador judgment was obtained by fraud even though Chevron's case <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39995-New-Report-Details-How-U-S-Courts-Endorsed-Chevron-s-Fabricated-Evidence-In-Historic-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">has fallen apart</a>, potentially exposing the company and its lawyers to criminal liability.<br />
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The campaign against Donziger has become such an obsession to Watson and his management team that it threatens a serious blowback. Watson and Pate essentially have bet their jobs on the RICO case given the massive investment of resources in fabricating false evidence and attacking the human rights community. Major Chevron investors are furious and shareholder resolutions connected to the Ecuador liability have received <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40039-Shareholders-Criticize-Chevron-CEO-Watson-for-Materially-Mishandling-12-Billion-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability" target="_blank">widespread support</a> in recent years.<br />
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Given that Chevron caved when it came time to test its evidence before a jury, the company is now trying to paralyze Donziger on the back end by insisting he pay the company $32 million to cover a small part of its legal fees in creating the sham allegations. The effort is a clear violation of the RICO law and the Constitution, as <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-08-07-letter-to-kaplan-re-july-17-order.pdf" target="_blank">this court submission</a> by Donziger points out. Simply put, there is no legal authority for Chevron to collect legal fees after it fabricated evidence and denied its adversary a jury.<br />
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In what can only be described as a situation that evokes shades of modern-day Russia, the same pro-Chevron judge in the U.S. (Kaplan) who already refused to hear evidence that Chevron defrauded the court to frame Donziger now gets to hear the motion to force Donziger to pay Chevron's fees for the work of its lawyers in framing him. That's not how the rule of law is supposed to be administered in a society with an independent judiciary.<br />
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(If you think the Russia comparison is inapt, read about a Russian lawyer named Magnitsky who was framed by multiple judges with fake evidence when he uncovered a massive tax fraud a few years ago. The book <i>Red Notice</i> by the American Bill Browder is the best account.)<br />
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Chevron's plan to try to use the case to isolate Donziger and his allies in the environmental community also has backfired. The villagers and their lawyers continue to garner deep support around the world. Among those in their camp are a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/mcgovern-to-obama.pdf" target="_blank">brave U.S. Congressman</a>, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39978-19-Scholars-Urge-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Condemn-Chevron-for-Violating-International-Law-In-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">international law experts</a> from nine countries, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39948-Civil-Society-Groups-Ask-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Reject-Chevron-s-Attempts-to-Undermine-Amazon-Pollution-Case?tracking_source=rss" target="_blank">17 environmental and human rights groups</a>, <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/EU-Legislators-Express-Support-for-Chevron-Victims-in-Ecuador-20150416-0035.html" target="_blank">members of the European Parliament</a>, and artists such as actor and producer <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2010/05/trudie-styler-on-chevron-in-ecuador-you.html" target="_blank">Trudie Styler and Sting</a>.<br />
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A retaliatory legal action so petty and desperate from one of the world's largest corporations against a brave lawyer who stood up to Chevron's 2,000-person team would be hard to find in the history of America. The attacks against Donziger decidedly will not help Chevron diminish its growing risk from the Ecuador judgment. And we will see if the beleaguered Chevron legal team at Chevron's outside law firm of Gibson Dunn -- which had marketed itself as a "rescue squad" to save Chevron from the Ecuador liability -- will be able to survive its growing reputation as a <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">serial ethical violator and fake fraud-producer</a> for clients guilty of scandalous behavior.<br />
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Besides confronting a fading a business model in a world transitioning to clean energy, there is little doubt Chevron and other oil companies collectively face more than one trillion dollars of unbooked liability for causing environmental damage over many decades. The Ecuador judgment could be the first of many to come. Hence, the massive expenditures to try to kill off the Ecuador case continue.<br />
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Donziger and the Ecuadorian villagers have a $12 billion judgment against Chevron. If Chevron succeeds in obtaining a $32 million judgment against one lawyer who has little chance of paying even a small fraction of it, so be it. Anyone keeping score realizes that Chevron is getting devastated.<br />
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Chevron's latest attack on Donziger also underscores that bullying often trumps serious merits-based litigation at the highest levels of the fossil fuel industry. Chevron's attempts to defame its victims will not play well in Canada in the upcoming trial to enforce the Ecuador judgment. Chevron has an estimated $25 billion of assets in Canada or more than enough to pay the entirety of the amount it owes to the people it harmed in Ecuador.<br />
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The Canada trial likely will result in a remediation paid by Chevron of a humanitarian disaster that never had to happen. Now that it has, Chevron needs to stop presenting fake evidence to courts and cheating the people it poisoned in Ecuador.<br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-71783236369933271882017-08-01T13:27:00.001-04:002017-09-20T07:26:29.147-04:00Bloomberg Should Fire Legal Reporter Paul Barrett For His Blatant BiasWhen is Bloomberg going to finally wake up and fire reporter Paul Barrett for his overall crappy reporting and his repeated bias in favor of Chevron in its scorched-earth campaign to evade paying the $12 billion Ecuador environmental judgment?<br />
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The latest example of Barrett's pro-business "reporting" comes from a Bloomberg article last week about the latest attempt by a major corporation with environmental problems to use the RICO (or "racketeering") statute to try to intimidate and silence its activist adversaries. The article details how Resolute, a Canadian timber company, has accused Greenpeace of being a "global fraud" after the organization claimed the company was trying to destroy the Boreal forests in Canada.<br />
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Let's get this straight: Greenpeace appears to be in the right (see t<a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/resolutelawsuits/" target="_blank">his great video</a> for its version) to take on Resolute over poor environmental practices. But even it was wrong, does that give a corporation like Resolute the right to use RICO and the civil justice system to try to bankrupt Greenpeace and undermine its First Amendment right to engage in legitimate advocacy?<br />
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Barrett seems to think so.<br />
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What Barrett should be writing about is how an increasing number of corporate counter-attacks against activists and human rights lawyers are becoming a threat to our democracy. For background on this dangerous trend, see <a href="http://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/how-companies-are-using-law-suits-to-silence-environmental-activists-and-how-philanthropy-can-help/" target="_blank">this compelling blog</a> by Otto Saki of the Ford Foundation and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-redford/the-new-corporate-playboo_b_10599544.html" target="_blank">this analysis</a> by Katie Redford of Earth Rights International. These important perspectives are absent from Barrett's reporting.<br />
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Now, to Barrett's bias in favor of Chevron in its battle to evade paying the Ecuador pollution judgment. In the latest article, Barrett tries to impart credibility to the shaky Resolute lawsuit by comparing it to the RICO judgment Chevron obtained against American lawyer Steven Donziger and his Ecuadorian clients who won a historic $12 billion judgment against the company. But Chevron's RICO case was a fraud in and of itself -- engineered by a pro-business judge and hundreds of company lawyers. Since the judgment came out in 2014, that case has completely fallen apart.<br />
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(If you want to understand the utter depravity of Chevron's RICO case and why it has completely collapsed since trial, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39995-New-Report-Details-How-U-S-Courts-Endorsed-Chevron-s-Fabricated-Evidence-In-Historic-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">this press release</a> and this <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KaplanRebuttal.pdf" target="_blank">33-page response</a> to the erroneous findings of the trial judge. See <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> for a summary of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron in the Ecuador case and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> for the peer-reviewed studies showing high cancer rates in the affected area.)<br />
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In the RICO case, Chevron fabricated evidence of a judicial bribe by illegally paying its star witness, Alberto Guerra, a $2 million bribe in exchange for his false testimony. The case collapsed after trial after Guerra <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">admitted he lied repeatedly</a> on the stand and a forensic analysis of the Ecuador trial judge's computers proved he wrote the judgment, contrary to Guerra's testimony that it had been ghostwritten by lawyers for the plaintiffs.<br />
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Chevron used hundreds of lawyers to target Donziger, a solo practitioner and human rights attorney. The company admitted its long-term strategy was to "demonize" him. But Chevron's lawyers, in an act of utter cowardice, dropped all damages claims against Donziger on the eve of the RICO trial to avoid a jury of impartial fact finders. Yet none of this an be found in Barrett's reporting on the Chevron RICO case. That's just deceptive.<br />
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In his article on the Resolute lawsuit, Barret writes about the Chevron case as follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Chevron proved that its activist foes had transformed their suit against the company into an extortion plot featuring bribery, fabrication of evidence, and the ghostwriting of judicial opinions.</blockquote>
As the above reports prove, this type of analysis is just flat-out wrong and deceptive. The totality of the evidence proves there was no bribe or ghostwriting and the only party to fabricate evidence in the RICO case <i>was Chevron</i>. Yet Barrett has completely ignored these critical developments. He does not even give a nod to the idea of a competing narrative.<br />
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While Barrett used his Bloomberg platform to repeatedly shill for Chevron during the RICO trial in 2013, he has never reported on the collapse of Chevron's RICO evidence and still acts as if the flawed judgment in that case is End of Story. Yet that RICO judgment is now virtually worthless to Chevron in courts around the world that are threatening to seize company assets. Chevron's RICO strategy has failed; the campaign of the villagers has been successful. Barrett has it backwards.<br />
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Chevron now faces a veritable mountain of liability ($12 billion) in Canada in a judgment enforcement action that already won the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">unanimous backing of the country's Supreme Court</a>.<br />
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Barrett's flawed reporting comes on top of the dozens of factual errors, use of outright plagiarism, and the fictionalized scenes in his supposedly non-fiction book on the Ecuador case that was rushed out in 2014 to celebrate Chevron's supposed "victory" over Donziger that never was. The credibility of that book -- most of which could have been written by Chevron's public relations team -- was utterly destroyed in a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-09-09-letter-to-barret.pdf" target="_blank">point-by-point takedown by Donziger</a> himself.<br />
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Barrett's errors in his Ecuador reporting curiously always point in one direction -- Chevron's. He has denied the truth about <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-dematteis/chevron-ecuador_b_1421407.html" target="_blank">what really happened</a> to the indigenous people of Ecuador, whitewashed the company's environmental crimes, and tried to celebrate the "genius" of corporations that use the profits they suck out of the earth to violate the constitutional rights of their adversaries.<br />
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The fact Barrett is part of a <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2014/0930-business-journalists-rush-to-rescue-chevron-from-its-ecuador-disaster" target="_blank">troika of business reporters</a> who for years have shamelessly carried Chevron's water for its disastrous behavior in Ecuador is a real stain on Bloomberg's reputation.<br />
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To maintain her own credibility, Bloomberg editor Megan Murphy should show Barrett the door. Bloomberg needs to assign a reporter to the Chevron legal beat who can write about these critically important matters with a more balanced perspective.Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-38919288630190663992017-06-22T09:00:00.001-04:002017-06-22T21:50:26.119-04:00George Mason Professor Krauss Is Chevron's New Stooge in Ecuador Pollution CaseNote to George Mason University law students: exercise extreme caution when dealing with Professor Michael I. Krauss, a self-proclaimed "expert" in ethics who in his spare time shills for Chevron's criminal cover-up of its toxic dumping in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. You might want to ask Krauss in his next ethics class if his obvious ties to Chevron and his obfuscation of the truth compromise the academic standards of George Mason.<br />
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As background, Krauss teaches at a university that has received major funding from the Koch Brothers and their largely anonymous network of right-wing donors exposed brilliantly in Jane Mayer's book <i>Dark Money</i>. The Kochs have donated tens of millions of dollars to turn George Mason into a "libertarian mecca" that serves as a beachhead near the nation's capital for political and academic attacks on almost any form of government regulation. (See pages 149-151 of Mayer's book for background.)<br />
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We have no problem if Krauss is an avowed libertarian, even if his university has sold its soul to right-wing donors. We do have a problem with his estranged relationship with the truth.<br />
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In fact, in his many blog posts on Forbes on the Chevron case, Krauss repeatedly ignores, obfuscates, and distorts the most basic facts to apologize for the company's atrocious behavior in Ecuador as found by multiple courts around the world. Unlike the propagandistic blog posts of Krauss, these court findings are based on voluminous scientific evidence and peer-reviewed and scholarly research.<br />
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Consider what Krauss ignores in his posts about Chevron's role in creating a catastrophe so massive it is called the "Amazon Chernobyl" by locals:<br />
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**Chevron was found by three layers of courts in Ecuador -- the country where company lawyers had insisted the trial be held -- to have deliberately and systematically dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into the waterways of the Amazon rainforest over a two-decade period, decimating indigenous groups and causing an untold number of cancer deaths. The court decisions were based on more than 105 technical evidentiary reports and Chevron's own admissions. Ecuador's highest court unanimously affirmed Chevron's liability.<br />
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Here is what Krauss ignores and doesn't want you to see: <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">a summary</a> of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron; <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CA2-brief-corrections-RC4.pdf" target="_blank">a legal brief</a> that explains the horrific history of the company's toxic dumping, subterfuge, fraud, and criminal cover-up in Ecuador and the United States; and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">a summary</a> of the peer-reviewed health studies that show high cancer rates and other impacts.<br />
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**Initially sued by indigenous villagers in New York federal court in 1993, Chevron praised Ecuador's justice system and accepted jurisdiction in the country thinking it could engineer a political dismissal of the case. After that failed, and with the scientific evidence against it mounting, Chevron sold its assets in Ecuador to evade paying any eventual judgment. Making a total mockery of the rule of law, Chevron then went into lockdown mode and tried to sabotage and paralyze the very trial it insisted on having. It once filed 39 repetitive motions in less than one hour just to tie up the court.<br />
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**Ultimately, Chevron was found liable in its preferred forum of Ecuador and ordered to pay $9.5 billion in damages and costs -- a pittance compared to the roughly $50 billion BP has paid out for the much smaller Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010. Yet rather than pay the judgment and clean up the toxic disaster it caused, Chevron threatened the indigenous groups who brought the claims with a "lifetime of litigation" if they persisted.<br />
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**Making good on its threat, Chevron retaliated by suing the plaintiffs and their lawyers under the civil RICO law back in the same U.S. court where it refused to defend the underlying claims. The company again made an utter <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">mockery of justice</a>, dropping all damages claims on the eve of trial to avoid a jury of impartial fact finders. Chevron then bribed a witness with a $2 million payment to claim that the judgment in Ecuador was "ghostwritten" by the plaintiffs -- an absolute lie that has since been <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" target="_blank">proven wrong</a> by a forensic examination.<br />
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For background on Chevron's criminal legal violations and witness bribery, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2017-05-01-aw-ran-amicus-brief.pdf" target="_blank">this brief</a> filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Defendants-motion-to-strike-testimony-of-Alberto-Guerra-Bastides.pdf" target="_blank">this legal submission</a>, and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38468-Chevron-Agrees-to-Pay-Huge-Salary-and-Income-Taxes-of-Key-Witness-Who-Perjured-Himself-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">this press release</a>. Krauss also ignores the fact that <a href="http://nor%20will%20krauss%20tell%20you%20that%2017%20prominent%20human%20rights%20and%20environmental%20groups%20and%2019%20international%20law%20scholars%20already%20weighed%20in%20on%20the%20side%20of%20the%20villagers%20with%20powerful%20legal%20briefs./" target="_blank">17 prominent human rights groups</a> and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39978-19-Scholars-Urge-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Condemn-Chevron-for-Violating-International-Law-In-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">19 international law scholars</a> have sided with the villagers in their campaign against Chevron.<br />
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**The bribed Chevron witness, Alberto Guerra, later admitted that he repeatedly lied under oath on behalf of the company in the U.S. federal court proceeding. Separately, a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" target="_blank">forensic examination by the American expert J. Christopher Racich</a> demonstrated that the Ecuador trial judge wrote the decision against Chevron on his office computer, contradicting Guerra's false claim that it had been given to the trial judge on a flash drive just before it was issued.<br />
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**In the meantime, the Supreme Courts of two countries -- Ecuador and Canada -- have unanimously rejected Chevron's fabricated "fraud" claims and ruled in favor of the villagers. The affected communities and their legal team are currently trying to seize company assets in Canada and Brazil to force compliance with the Ecuador judgment. The next hearing in Canada is this October in Toronto.<br />
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**In total, 18 judges appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada have ruled in favor of the villagers. Yet Krauss writes only about a rogue decision from one U.S. federal judge who relied on false evidence fabricated from Chevron for his findings. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused to review those false findings, as did the U.S. Supreme Court.<br />
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Because of its corrupt acts in Ecuador and the United States and its utter disdain for the rule of law, Chevron now finds itself in serious trouble. It faces possible criminal and civil jeopardy for its cover-up in addition to its $12 billion environmental liability (rising $300 million per year because of interest) to the people of Ecuador. Company management, led by CEO John Watson, also <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40054-Chevron-CEO-Suffers-Major-Rebuke-Over-12-Billion-Ecuador-Liability-At-Annual-Shareholder-Meeting-" target="_blank">faces a shareholder revolt</a> over its unethical behavior in trying to evade paying the Ecuador judgment.<br />
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In his latest blog, Krauss tried to claim that a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review of the deeply flawed RICO decision somehow vindicates the rule of law. Not true. The Supreme Court actually is turning a blind eye to the rule of law. Consider this shameful fact: no U.S. appellate court ever considered evidence of Chevron's contamination, the company's bribes of its star witness, the admissions by the Chevron witness that he lied under oath, or the results of a forensic examination that completely exposes the RICO decision for the fraud that it is.<br />
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Krauss also suggests that Steven Donziger, one of the American lawyers for the villagers who has courageously led the fight against Chevron, should be disbarred based on the company's fabricated evidence. Chevron has admitted its strategy in the case is "to demonize" Donziger rather than defend on the merits. Playing Chevron's game on this point is not only unethical, but could lead to serious problems for Krauss. Calling publicly for a fellow lawyer to be disbarred based on false evidence is itself a major violation of the rules of ethics.<br />
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This sad episode with Krauss reminds us of another law professor from Notre Dame who also allowed himself to be used as a Chevron stooge in the Ecuador matter, with disastrous results. That professor, Douglas Cassell, was slapped down by Notre Dame's administration for hiding the fact he was receiving payments from Chevron while shilling publicly for the oil giant. He was also forced to remove all of his Chevron materials from his page on the school's website. For background, see <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/09/chevron-paying-notre-dame-human-rights.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Krauss should be forced to disclose to his students, the George Mason administration, and Forbes why he he has posted so many misleading blogs that try to apologize for Chevron's environmental crimes and fraudulent cover up. Is is possible that he too is being paid by Chevron or any of the many groups funded by the oil company? Has Chevron donated money to George Mason? If so, why has Krauss not disclosed these obvious conflicts of interest?<br />
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We might add that Krauss brags on his resume for having arranged the largest ever "anonymous" donation to George Mason. He might start the process of complying with his ethical obligations by disclosing whether Mr. Anonymous made his money in the fossil fuel industry, whether he is Charles or David Koch, or whether he might have something to do with Chevron. And Krauss might be forced by the George Mason law faculty to cease teaching "ethics" until he comes clean on his own ethical issues.<br />
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The personal reputation of Krauss, and by extension that of the entire law faculty at George Mason, is in play. The university has a robust ethics policy. It should be enforced. In the meantime, it is pretty safe to conclude that the blog posts of Krauss on the Chevron case are that of a political hack, not that of a law scholar.<br />
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<br />Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-61927391034829111412017-06-02T22:28:00.000-04:002017-06-04T22:28:14.534-04:00Chevron's Payments To RICO Witness Are Not Just Ugly - They're CriminalReposted from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5931c879e4b0649fff2118e9"><i>The Huffington Post</i></a>.<br />
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<p>Fellow HuffPost contributor <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/paulpazymino-197" target="_blank">Paul Paz y Miño</a> has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder_us_592dca76e4b047e77e4c3f0d" target="_blank">a great post</a> up on Chevron's payments to the "fact" witness at the heart of its <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/sludge-match-chevron-legal-battle-ecuador-steven-donziger-20140828" target="_blank">insane civil "racketeering" (RICO) lawsuit</a> against its own Ecuadorian contamination victims, focusing on the fact that the payments are not just unseemly and illustrative of the cynicism of the entire gambit, but also -- <em>oh yeah</em> -- illegal under federal law. This has not gone unmentioned, including most recently in an <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/sites/default/files/documents/chevron_donziger_scotus_amicus_-final_version_1.pdf" target="_blank">important amicus brief</a> as <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/chevrons-illegal-payments-witnesses-should-prompt-supreme-court-reconsider-case" target="_blank">described by Michelle Harrison of Earthrights International</a>, but Paul's reminder about the legal framework is helpful. </p><p>Perhaps wisely, the Ecuadorian contamination victims have not thus far piled litigation upon litigation by pressing for yet another legal case out of these illegal payments, especially given that a federal law claim would be heard by a U.S. federal court system that has thus far utterly rolled over to Chevron—memorably described by the judge in the RICO case as "a company of considerable importance to our economy." (He went on to opine from the bench that "I don't think there is anybody in this courtroom who wants to pull his car into a gas station to fill up and finds that there isn't any gas there because these folks," <em>i.e.</em> the Chevron's Ecuadorian victims.) </p><p>But that doesn't mean the Ecuadorians (or federal prosecutors) wouldn't have a case if they saw fit to bring one before the statute of limitations expires sometime in the next year. Paul set out the relevant statute, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201" target="_blank">18 U.S.C. § 201</a> <em>et seq.</em>, in his blog. It sets out the crime and associated fines and imprisonment (up to two years) for anyone who "directly or indirectly, gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, <em><strong>for or because of the testimony</strong></em> under oath or affirmation given or to be given by such person as a witness upon a trial." § 201(c)(2). </p><p>Critically, the only criminal intent required here is the intent to make the payment. If there provable "intent to influence the testimony," the penalty goes up to a maximum of 15 years imprisonment. </p><p>Did Chevron and its legal team at <a href="http://www.gibsondunn.com/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Gibson Dunn</a> give "anything of value" to Alberto Guerra "for or because of [his] testimony" in Chevron's RICO case? Did they do so "to influence [Guerra's] testimony"? </p><p>Oh yeah. Oh $$$ Yeah. </p><p>The point of this blog is not to review all the ugly Guerra details. You've got Paul's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder_us_592dca76e4b047e77e4c3f0d" target="_blank">blog</a>, the Earthrights <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/chevrons-illegal-payments-witnesses-should-prompt-supreme-court-reconsider-case" target="_blank">blog</a>, and the recent <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/sites/default/files/documents/chevron_donziger_scotus_amicus_-final_version_1.pdf" target="_blank">amicus brief</a>. You've got <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2013/0501-chevron-offered-suitcase-full-of-cash-to-former-ecuador-judge-guerra-in-exchange-for-testimony" target="_blank">this analysis</a> from when the payments were first uncovered, and this <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Defendants-motion-to-strike-testimony-of-Alberto-Guerra-Bastides.pdf" target="_blank">trial motion</a> (to the biased judge above) to strike Guerra's testimony. You've got these <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">reports</a> <a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16058" target="_blank">and</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/chevrons-ghostwriting-cha_b_7191074.html" target="_blank">blogs</a> about later Guerra <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-paz-y-mino/game-over-chevrons-rico-c_b_8395290.html" target="_blank">recanting</a> his obviously false testimony, and about that testimony later being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/chevrons-ghostwriting-cha_b_7191074.html" target="_blank">proven false</a> through a forensic analysis of the hard drive of an Ecuadorian judge. (This analysis showed that Guerra's elaborate story of helping to "ghostwrite" the environmental judgment against Chevron on one of the plaintiffs' laptops was flat-out false. The judgment was properly written by the Ecuadorian judge on his computer in chambers.) </p><p>Though we'll get to Chevron's "defense" in a second, this really isn't a subtle or nuanced case. As the snippet in Paul's blog sets out, this is Chevron handing Guerra a suitcase full of $18,000 in cash at their first meeting, and Guerra responding with <strong><em>"Couldn't you add a few zeroes?"</em></strong> </p><p><a href="https://www.earthrights.org/sites/default/files/documents/chevron_donziger_scotus_amicus_-final_version_1.pdf#page=21" target="_blank">Many zeroes</a> are indeed later added, in the form of more hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional cash payments and a regular "salary," a housing stipend, a car, health insurance, and permanent immigration to the United States—a benefit of priceless value to Guerra because it allowed him to reunite with several of his adult children living illegally in the United States who he hadn't seen in years. </p><p>In return, Guerra put himself and his testimony at Chevron's disposal. He was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/false-testimony-forced-ecuador_b_5600985.html" target="_blank">prepped for over 50 days</a> by Chevron lawyers in advance of his RICO testimony, and has been trotted out to testify (falsely) in other subsequent proceedings. His "fact" testimony <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DONZIGER-POST-TRIAL-BRIEF-2013-12-23.pdf#page=39" target="_blank">changed constantly (and dramatically)</a> to fit shifting factual developments in the case and Chevron's needs at any given point. The whole thing was truly a disgrace. </p><p>Chevron's defense (and the company has spent well over $1 billion on legal fees in the case, so yes, it purports to have a defense) is that Guerra was paid not for his <strong><em>testimony</em></strong>, but rather for the underlying <strong><em>information</em></strong> he gave Chevron—and subsequently testified about. </p><p>You might be thinking: <em>Say what? </em>How is this not paying for testimony? You wouldn't be alone. When famed legal ethics and constitutional law scholar <a href="http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/chemerinsky/" target="_blank">Dean Erwin Chemerinsky</a> heard that Chevron and Gibson Dunn were making this claim, he was so outraged he offered the Ecuadorian <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" target="_blank">a </a><a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" target="_blank">free</a><a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" target="_blank"> legal opinion</a> to try to convince the court not to accept the testimony: </p><blockquote>[I]f a party or its counsel were permitted to pay a testifying witness for physical evidence, beyond the reasonable value of that evidence, and to pay the witness a salary in exchange for an agreement to testify, there would be little left to the rule against compensating fact witnesses. Lawyers could always circumvent the prohibition of paying non-expert witnesses for their testimony by saying it was to pay for documents or other physical evidence. </blockquote><p>Specifically on the evidence versus information question, Chemerinsky did not entirely reject the notion that a party might be able to pay for "information," but emphasized the key restraint on any such practice—that the payments not enrich the witness. </p><blockquote>If a lawyer pays a testifying witness for physical evidence, such payments must be based on the reasonable value of the evidence, and a reasonable fee for the witness's time spent gathering the evidence. For example, if a lawyer were to pay to obtain a computer from a witness, <strong><em>the lawyer should not pay the witness more than the replacement cost of the computer</em></strong>, and any costs incidental to copying the necessary data. In my opinion, the reasonable value of the physical evidence <strong><em>should not be based on its value to the lawyer or the party obtaining the evidence</em></strong>. If that were the rule, there would be virtually no limitation on payments that lawyers could make to fact witnesses under the guise of obtaining evidence. </blockquote><p>Now, Chevron got an ethics opinion, too. It got it from <a href="https://content.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/gmc3y/1154200" target="_blank">Professor George M. Cohen</a> at the <a href="https://content.law.virginia.edu/" target="_blank">University of Virginia Law School</a>, and while it most certainly was not provided <em>pro bono</em>, Chevron apparently did the right thing by consulting with Cohen and explaining the situation <em><strong>before</strong></em> they made any payments to Guerra. The distinguished professor <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/First-Cohen-opinion.pdf" target="_blank">signed-off</a> on some payments to Guerra in some circumstances, setting out clear ethical lines to be followed as Chevron entered such ethically tricky waters. So far, so good. (I have a dim view of the substance of the opinion, which I may explain in a later blog, but at least the approach thus far was minimally adequate.) </p><p>But then, Chevron and Gibson Dunn decided they didn't like all those ethical lines after all. For example, throughout his 20-page, gold-plated opinion, Professor Cohen repeatedly emphasized the importance of the fact that the substantial payments for information <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/First-Cohen-opinion.pdf" target="_blank">were okay</a> because it was just a cash-for-information deal, unconnected from the focus of § 201, namely testimony . He wrote: </p><blockquote>On its face, §201(c)(2) does not seem to apply to payments purely for information or documents, as opposed to testimony. Because Chevron intends to pay for pre-existing information, <strong><em>and currently has no intention to call the witness to provide testimony in the pending federal proceeding in New York, or any other federal proceeding,</em></strong> the payment does not seem to violate the statute. </blockquote><p>But Chevron and Gibson Dunn decide they do want Guerra to testify after all. (Or maybe that was the plan from the beginning.) In any event, that's a problem given the do-not-cross lines set out in the opinion, right? </p><p>No sir, no problem at all! They go back to the good professor, who provides <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Second-Cohen-opinion.pdf" target="_blank">a revised version</a> of the same opinion, neatly excising out the inconvenient (italicized above) parts:</p><blockquote>On its face, § 201(c)(2) does not seem to apply to payments purely for information or documents, as opposed to testimony. Because Chevron intends to pay for pre-existing information, the payment does not seem to violate the statute. </blockquote><p>Gee thanks Professor! What a pro. No wonder these guys are paid the big bucks. </p><p>With the "information versus testimony" distinction in mind, Chevron and Gibson Dunn and their agents met with Guerra. Their attempt to "stay within the ethical lines" is, frankly, comical. The meeting was recorded:</p><p><strong>CHEVRON: </strong>The money we're talking about is for, the money has to be for information—</p><p><strong>GUERRA:</strong> Yes, yes, yes.</p><p><strong>CHEVRON: </strong>It cannot be for testimony. It has to be for, it has to be for—</p><p><strong>GUERRA: </strong>Yes, yes, yes, but not for only—</p><p><strong>CHEVRON: </strong>—or for creating any of that [VOICES OVERLAP]—</p><p><strong>GUERRA:</strong> For example, for example, right now, of all that—right? I don't earn anything and neither do you.</p><p><strong>CHEVRON: </strong>Uh-huh.</p><p><strong>GUERRA: </strong>We can talk about gold, old man.</p><p><strong>CHEVRON:</strong> Of course.</p><p><strong>GUERRA:</strong> But, damn, in practice, nothing.</p><p><strong>CHEVRON:</strong> Of course, but I mean, it has to be information, not— [OVERLAP]</p><p><strong>GUERRA:</strong> Sure, this is a matter of "here you are, these are my documents ...</p><p><strong>CHEVRON:</strong> There, that's it.</p><p><strong>GUERRA: </strong>—and that has value. It's worth one, or worth a million. But that does have value.</p><p><strong>CHEVRON: </strong>Exactly.</p><p><strong>GUERRA: </strong>That's the whole issue. Sure, it's clear to me.</p><p>It's clear to us too, Alberto. All too clear. </p><p>You can almost see the grins on their faces as they go through this charade, knowing the recorder is running. At the end of this conversation, they "purchase" from Guerra the "information and evidence" listed on <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/attachment-a-to-guerra-contract/" target="_blank">this Appendix</a>: a used hard drive and a handful of flash drives, a few old calendars ("day planners"), and "permission to access, inspect, copy, and preserve" two email accounts. The reasonable value of all this, to Guerra? What do you think? Fifty bucks? One hundred? </p><p>Guerra gets a suitcase with $18,000. </p><p>Of course, that's not the "million" Guerra wanted. As was made "clear" to him, he would get it—he would have to wait a little bit. </p><p>At this point (or after another "purchase" of old technology and records for an additional $20,000), Chevron and Gibson Dunn start shifting the payments into a new "ethical" theory: witness expenses. For this theory, Guerra will indeed be a witness, utterly reversing the central fact that justified the first two Cohen opinions. </p><p>They need another ethics opinion. How to get it? Perhaps they approached a second ethics professor without telling him or her about Cohen? No, don't be silly. Remember, Cohen is a pro. He can handle anything.</p><p>So <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Third-Cohen-opinion.pdf" target="_blank">back to Cohen they go</a>, now with the fact that they want Guerra to sign a contract sign <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Guerra-Cooperation-Agreement.pdf" target="_blank">a contract</a> obliging himself to testify at Chevron's direction. Witness expenses are typically understood to include travel, accommodation, copying costs, and at most an hourly fee for discrete work. Here, among many other perks as noted above, Chevron put Guerra on an indefinite "salary" of $10,000 per month—<strong><em>20 times</em></strong> what he was earning before he started negotiating with Chevron. Nonetheless, Professor Cohen opines, this is a reasonable understanding of "expenses." (Professor Chemerinsky, meanwhile, makes clear that <strong><em>any</em></strong> payment of a "salary" to a fact witness is "a clear violation" of the rules.)</p><p>The problems with the Cohen opinions go on and on. I won't (continue to) digress. Sadly, for Chevron and Gibson Dunn, the opinions have basically the same value as they did on their sell-by date—not based on their ridiculous arguments and client-serving logic, but based their cover-your-ass (CYA) value. No matter how bad they are, Chevron and Gibson Dunn get to say, <em>gee, he's the expert, how could we have known better? </em> </p><p>Personally, I don't think it's enough in these circumstances. The fact that Cohen was so acrobatic in adjusting his opinions to suit Chevron's needs as they emerged I think lessens their CYA value considerably. Depending on the context in which a § 201 claim or criminal prosecution might arise, the central issue would still go to a jury: were Chevron's cash payments, $120,000/year "salary," immigration, and other perks, made to Alberto Guerra "for or because of [his] testimony" in the RICO case? (For the more severe sanction in § 201(b)(3), were the payments "corrupt," i.e. to "influence [that] testimony"?)</p><p>Not a toughie. </p><p>Not surprisingly, Chevron seems more than a bit nervous about <em>l'Affaire Guerra. </em>At Chevron's <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40054-Chevron-CEO-Suffers-Major-Rebuke-Over-12-Billion-Ecuador-Liability-At-Annual-Shareholder-Meeting-" target="_blank">recent annual shareholders summit</a>, Chevron played a video it had commissioned crafting itself as the hero of the whole Ecuador situation, an unfairly targeted corporation that had the guts to stand up to a criminal band of deceitful Ecuadorians and conniving U.S. lawyers. It then took questions. But when a question was asked about Guerra, Chevron CEO John Watson brusquely turned the entire meeting to another topic and the questioner's microphone was shut off. </p><p>But there are a lot of microphones that Chevron can't shut off. Shareholders ended up voting at historic levels to rebuke CEO Watson for his "mishandling" of the Ecuador case; a full 39% (a huge percentage for a shareholder resolution) voted to install an independent chair that analysts claimed would bring more perspective to the company's Ecuador strategy. (The company's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-marr-page/slip-sliding-whats-happen_b_6911916.html" target="_blank">self-stated strategy</a> at present is "fight until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice.")</p><p>In a year, Chevron and Gibson Dunn might breathe easier, as they will be able to try to fight off any criminal prosecution on the Guerra payments by pointing to the federal five-year the statute of limitations. Until then, Chevron's fight on the ice is more like a cold sweat. We'll see what happens next. </p>The Blog Teamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18125552649996387103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-75741288966887725162017-06-02T10:12:00.002-04:002017-06-03T22:16:52.827-04:00Chevron CEO Is Lying to His Own Shareholders Over $12 Billion Ecuador LiabilityOne thing clear from the wreckage that was Chevron's annual meeting this week: CEO John Watson is blatantly lying to his own shareholders over the disastrous handling of the company's $12 billion Ecuador environmental liability.<br />
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Putting out fake news is not working for Donald Trump and it will not work for John Watson either. But that is exactly what he is trying to do to obfuscate the company's responsibility for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into the waterways of indigenous groups in Ecuador's Amazon.<br />
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Chevron's liability stems from the findings by three layers of courts in Ecuador that the company deliberately discharged the oil waste over two decades and abandoned roughly 1,000 unlined oil waste pits gouged out of the jungle floor. The contamination decimated indigenous groups, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">causing an outbreak of cancer</a> that has killed or threatens to kill thousands of innocent civilians. Chevron operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992.<br />
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<i>(See <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> for a summary of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron. See <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-dematteis/chevron-ecuador_b_1421407.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a photo essay by journalist Lou Dematteis on the humanitarian catastrophe caused by Chevron's oil pollution in Ecuador.)</i><br />
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Worse, Watson and members of his legal team -- led by Chief Counsel R. Hewitt Pate and outside counsel Randy Mastro -- <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0530-chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder-dollars-to-bribe-a-witness" target="_blank">might face criminal prosecution</a> for bribing a critical witness to try to evade paying the judgment. That's on top of Watson recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/21/chevron-australia-faces-tax-bill-of-340m-after-court-rules-it-shifted-profits-to-us" target="_blank">being caught red-handed</a> trying to rip off Australia with a tax scheme related to the company's Gorgon natural gas project, costing Chevron shareholders about $300 million in addition to major reputational damage.<br />
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As we sit here today, after two decades of the historic battle in Ecuador between Big Oil and indigenous groups, Watson's biggest problem is that a legal case that the company probably could have settled for approximately $100 million in the mid-1990s is now worth $12 billion. That's on top of the estimated $2 billion Chevron has spent on <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> to defend the case. And it doesn't include the $300 million in annual interest that accrues to the judgment.<br />
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The $12 billion figure is based on a final and enforceable judgment that was <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-11-12-supreme-court-ecuador-decision-english.pdf" target="_blank">affirmed unanimously by Ecuador's Supreme Court</a> in the venue where Chevron accepted jurisdiction. The company had filed 14 sworn affidavits praising Ecuador's judicial system when it insisted the trial be held in the country. Now, Watson refuses to pay the judgment despite <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">overwhelming evidence</a> of Chevron's toxic dumping, fraud, and other wrongdoing .<br />
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One might think that by now Chevron's massive expenditures should have achieved its obvious objective -- the killing off of the environmental claims of the villagers. Instead, the expenditures seem to be backfiring. The villagers simply won't go away. Despite some occasional setbacks through the years, the undeniable truth is that they are now gaining strength both in court and with the company's own shareholders.<br />
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In court, Chevron faces a critical hearing this October in Toronto as the villagers try to seize company assets in Canada to recover the full amount of their judgment. Already, two appellate courts in Canada (<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">including the nation's Supreme Court</a>) have ruled unanimously against Chevron as Watson continues to fail in his attempts to try to shut down the the asset seizure action.<br />
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Watson's effort to block a similar enforcement action targeting company assets in Brazil also has failed.<br />
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Among Chevron shareholders, several large institutional investors put the hurt on Watson at the company's annual meeting. They <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40054-Chevron-CEO-Suffers-Major-Rebuke-Over-12-Billion-Ecuador-Liability-At-Annual-Shareholder-Meeting-" target="_blank">lined up behind a resolution</a> that accused Watson of "materially mishandling" the Ecuador litigation. This is a startling public rebuke of a CEO that one rarely sees in annual meetings of large companies.<br />
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One shareholder resolution that sought Watson's removal as Chairman over the Ecuador disaster received a whopping 39% of all outstanding shares -- a huge level of support. Normally, a shareholder resolution that receives 10% support is considered fantastically successful. Two other resolutions challenging Watson over his mishandling of the Ecuador litigation also received significant support. One received 31%, the other 20%.<br />
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In the court of public opinion, Watson's position also seems to be deteriorating as he fails to address shareholder concerns over Ecuador.<br />
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After the slap down of Watson's leadership at the annual meeting, Watson made the extraordinary claim that the company's Ecuador policy actually "enjoys overwhelming support from shareholders." Watson later turned off the microphone when a shareholder challenged him over the Ecuador policy. He is burying his head in the sand.<br />
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In his terse statements about Ecuador at the meeting, where he looked visibly uncomfortable, Watson refused to acknowledge that 43 civil society groups <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/1218-chevrons-threat-to-open-society" target="_blank">sent him a letter</a> criticizing the company's attempt to use "racketeering" laws in the U.S. to retaliate against the villagers and their lawyers. He also ignored the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39948-Civil-Society-Groups-Ask-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Reject-Chevron-s-Attempts-to-Undermine-Amazon-Pollution-Case?tracking_source=rss" target="_blank">17 environmental and human rights groups</a> and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39978-19-Scholars-Urge-U-S-Supreme-Court-to-Condemn-Chevron-for-Violating-International-Law-In-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">19 international law scholars</a> who have backed the villagers in legal briefs.<br />
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Watson's so-called "disclosure" of the Ecuador liability at the annual meeting and in the company's public filings are part of an elaborately constructed lie.<br />
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Watson tries to claim a 2013 decision by a U.S. federal judge <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">in a farcical non-jury trial</a> that has no legal relevance somehow nullifies the entire Ecuador judgment. But even in that one-sided proceeding, <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2013/05/attorney-john-kekers-blistering.html" target="_blank">called a Dickensian farce</a> by a prominent trial lawyer, the judge said he was not exonerating Chevron from its responsibility for the environmental damage in Ecuador.<br />
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Further, the entire factual basis for that U.S. case has collapsed in spectacular fashion -- a reality that Watson also refused to acknowledge to shareholders or in the company's SEC filings. It turns out that Chevron bribed its admittedly corrupt star witness, Alberto Guerra, with $2 million in cash and benefits. That witness <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">later admitted repeatedly lying</a> in U.S. court about several key issues.<br />
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Worse, Guerra's lies were <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37810-Chevron-Falsified-Evidence-Before-U-S-Federal-Court-About-Authorship-of-Ecuador-Judgment-Arbitration-Panel-Is-Told" target="_blank">corroborated by a scientific forensic analysis</a> that completely debunks Chevron's main defense in the case. This <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39995-New-Report-Details-How-U-S-Courts-Endorsed-Chevron-s-Fabricated-Evidence-In-Historic-Amazon-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">bombshell report</a> also explains in detail how Chevron fabricated evidence to try to evade paying the Ecuador judgment.<br />
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Amazon Watch, the environmental group that has battled Chevron for years, <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0530-chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder-dollars-to-bribe-a-witness" target="_blank">posted a blog</a> detailing how the company's illegal witness payments likely violate federal criminal law and could subject those involved to criminal prosecution. Another prominent U.S. environmental group, Earth Rights International, also <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/chevrons-illegal-payments-witnesses-should-prompt-supreme-court-reconsider-case" target="_blank">posted a blog</a> explaining how Chevron fabricated evidence.<br />
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We will give the final word to Carlos Guaman, the President of the Ecuador-based Amazon Defense Coalition, known more widely by its Spanish acronym FDA. The FDA is the group that has received international renown for courageously bringing the environmental lawsuit against Chevron on behalf of the affected indigenous and farmer communities.<br />
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Guaman warned Watson that the villagers are considering a new plan to file additional judgment enforcement actions in other countries to seize Chevron assets to force the company to abide by the rule of law. "Our people are dying because of Chevron's pollution, so we have no choice but to bring as much pressure to bear on the decision makers," he said.<br />
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That's putting it nicely. To Guaman and his followers, we say please continue to kick Watson's posterior until he and his cohorts are held fully accountable.<br />
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It is only a matter of time before Watson is either forced out of his job ,or forced to pay the full cost of the grotesque environmental catastrophe his company has visited on the people of Ecuador.<br />
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Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17614237787893877194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-56988931555320375862017-05-30T17:39:00.002-04:002017-05-30T18:39:23.064-04:00Chevron Executives Misused Millions of Shareholder Dollars To Bribe a Witness in Violation of U.S. Federal Law<p>Reposted from <a target="_blank" href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0530-chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder-dollars-to-bribe-a-witness"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a>.<br />
</p><br />
<a href="http://amazonwatch.org/take-action/twitter-action-demand-accountability-from-chevrons-board-of-directors"><img style="width:100%;height:auto" src="http://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/thumbs/2017/0530-chevron-executives-misused-millions-of-shareholder-dollars-to-bribe-a-witness.jpg" alt="Image credit: Amazon Watch" /></a><br />
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<blockquote style="text-align:center">Whoever directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, or offers or promises such person to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence the testimony under oath or affirmation of such first-mentioned person as a witness upon a trial, hearing, or other proceeding... or with intent to influence such person to absent himself therefrom; shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.<br />
<cite>18 U.S. Code § 201 – Bribery of public officials and witnesses</cite><br />
</blockquote><p>It may seem like this is stating the obvious, but it's a crime to bribe a witness to a U.S. federal court. Funny thing, though; Chevron has done just that, to the tune of $2 million dollars. Yet no one inside Chevron has demanded an explanation for this – until now. In advance of the company's annual shareholder meeting tomorrow, shareholders and members of the public are demanding that Chevron's Board of Directors determine just who authorized the payments of bribes to disgraced former Ecuadorian judge Alberto Guerra in exchange for his testimony in Chevron's retaliatory lawsuit against the affected Ecuadorians communities and their lawyers.<br />
</p><p>To recap, Chevron was found liable in 2011, after decades of legal battles, for $9.5 billion for having deliberately polluted the Ecuadorian Amazon by dumping over 16 billion gallons of toxic waste and causing a massive health epidemic which has costs well over a thousand lives to date. Rather than accept responsibility and pay for a cleanup, Chevron countersued the Ecuadorians and their lawyers and fabricated an elaborate lie alleging it was the victim of an injustice and that the Ecuadorian verdict against it was ghost-written by a judge that the Ecuadorian communities had bribed. Chevron won that separate case in a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2014/0325-chevrons-mockery-of-justice" target="_blank">shockingly-biased trial</a> and did so based primarily on the sworn testimony of known-liar Alberto Guerra. (For any readers wanting an extended review of the facts, please read <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/chevrons-illegal-payments-witnesses-should-prompt-supreme-court-reconsider-case" target="_blank">this excellent post</a> from our friends at EarthRights International.) <br />
</p><p>As <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/1031-you-get-what-you-pay-for-perjury-in-this-case" target="_blank">we have written about before</a>, Guerra was already seen as an unreliable witness at the time of the countersuit and even the presiding judge, Lewis Kaplan, acknowledged that he was a liar and corrupt. He noted that Guerra "often has been dishonest," and that he had "multiple" times in his professional history "accepted bribes," "lied," and "broken the law." And Kaplan also noted that "Guerra's willingness to accept and solicit bribes" among "other considerations, put his credibility in serious doubt, particular in light of the benefits he has obtained from Chevron." Yet, Kaplan allowed his testimony to be admitted. Guerra's testimony was central to Chevron's allegations and the trial court's findings. It was the only evidence of a scheme to bribe the presiding Ecuadorian Judge to rule against Chevron. <br />
</p><p>As described in the <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/sites/default/files/documents/chevron_donziger_scotus_amicus_-final_version_1.pdf" target="_blank">recent Amicus Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court</a> prepared by EarthRights International, Chevron paid Guerra on multiple occasions:<br />
</p><blockquote>In July 2012, Chevron sent Andres Rivero, one of its U.S. lawyers, and a private investigator to Ecuador – with <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2013/0501-chevron-offered-suitcase-full-of-cash-to-former-ecuador-judge-guerra-in-exchange-for-testimony" target="_blank">$18,000 in a suitcase</a> – to meet with Guerra. The cash was supposedly to buy Guerra's computer; Chevron hoped to find a draft of the final judgment, which Guerra claimed he had written. Recordings of the meeting show Rivero, the investigator, and Guerra negotiating a payment: <br />
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INV #5: You, let's say, tell us how much, how much. <br />
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GUERRA: Well, how much are you willing? <br />
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... <br />
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RIVERO: I'm an attorney, so then... How... for me it's, uh... I don't mind setting, uh, a, a starting figure right? Starting. Understand? Or, [INV #5] what do you think? <br />
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INV #5: Yes, Yes. We have twenty thousand dollars in the... <br />
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RIVERO: In hand. <br />
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INV #5: In hand, right? <br />
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GUERRA: Couldn't you add a few zeroes? <br />
</blockquote><br />
In January 2013, Chevron and Guerra signed a contract detailing the benefits Chevron would provide to Guerra and his family in exchange for Guerra testifying. The benefits were guaranteed for two years, with an option of renewal... The benefits Chevron agreed to pay Guerra were "compensation" and were separate from and "in addition" to "travel and other expenses" associated with testifying.<br />
<br />
All told, since July 2012, Chevron had given Guerra at a minimum:<br />
<ul><li>$432,000 in monthly payments; <br />
</li>
<li>$12,000 for household items; <br />
</li>
<li>$48,000 in cash in exchange for evidence; <br />
</li>
<li>A new computer; <br />
</li>
<li>Payment of all U.S. taxes; <br />
</li>
<li>Expenses for Guerra and his family to move to the U.S.; <br />
</li>
<li>Health insurance for Guerra and his family; <br />
</li>
<li>A car and car insurance; and <br />
</li>
<li>Payment for an immigration attorney for Guerra and his family, an attorney to represent Guerra in the US proceedings, an Ecuadorian attorney, a tax attorney, and an accountant.</li>
</ul><br />
<h2>Money well spent for Chevron. Or was it? <br />
</h2><p>You might think Chevron's ongoing payments to Guerra would ensure he kept up his lies for Chevron, but Guerra's corruption was too much to keep hidden. When he took the stand in a related arbitration proceeding in 2015, <a href="http://oldarchives.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/ecuadorean-judge-backflips-on-explosive-testimony-for-chevron.htm" target="_blank">he admitted that he lied under oath in Kaplan's court!</a> In fact, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">he confessed that he misled the court about the bribe</a> and about having arranged to ghostwrite the judgment. He also admitted he did so specifically to get a larger payout from Chevron. This put Chevron in serious trouble as it became even more clear that the company paid him specifically to lie for it.<br />
</p><p>When pressed about the fact that Chevron bribed Guerra and didn't even get what it paid for, CEO John Watson might try to defend his actions by claiming that Chevron didn't know Guerra was going to lie. Yet, Chevron's lawyers coached him in preparation for the trial for 53 days! Of course, Chevron and its lawyers at the <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2011/12/chevrons-gibson-dunn-nailed-for.html" target="_blank">corporate hatchet firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher</a> knew Guerra was going to lie. They had been negotiating a price for this lies for years as <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2017/03/chevrons-false-evidence-in-ecuador-now.html" target="_blank">the <em>ChevronPit</em> blog has pointed out</a>:<br />
</p><blockquote>Chevron lawyers led by Randy Mastro then coached Guerra for 53 consecutive days before he took the stand in Kaplan's courtroom. "Money talks, but gold screams," Guerra told Chevron's lawyers when he negotiated his "fee" for testifying. <br />
</blockquote><p>Now <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2017/0123-step-towards-justice-in-chevron-ecuador-contamination-case" target="_blank">Chevron faces an enforcement action in Canada</a>, where the Ecuadorians continue to pursue the company's assets to finally pay for a cleanup. There will be another hearing in that case this October and Chevron will have the opportunity to explain Guerra's contradictory testimony in another court. I have a feeling it will do almost anything to avoid that embarrassment, however. In the meantime, CEO Watson and senior legal counsel Hewitt Pate will have to explain to shareholders how bribing a federal witness to commit fraud in U.S. federal court is an appropriate use of millions of dollars of shareholder funds. For a company already known worldwide as a gross polluter and environmental criminal, Watson has achieved the seemingly impossible by making Chevron's reputation even worse.<br />
</p><p style="text-align:center"><strong><br />
<a href="http://amazonwatch.org/take-action/twitter-action-demand-accountability-from-chevrons-board-of-directors">Send your message to Chevron's Board of Directors today and demand they hold CEO Watson accountable for his illegal actions</a><br />
</strong></p><br />
<p>P.S. To learn more about Chevron's retaliatory legal attacks on the Ecuadorians, we recommend you <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be9XncS8tiA&list=PLK0pnfmoVNcGCcZ5PLuFmawXY3Osvz89C" target="_blank">watch our Donny Rico video series by Pulitzer Prize-winning animator Mark Fiore</a>.<br />
</p>The Blog Teamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18125552649996387103noreply@blogger.com