Reuters’ Column Reveals Judge Kaplan’s Bias Against Ecuadorians In His Upcoming “Show Trial” On $18 Billion Judgment Against Chevron

A recent Reuters’ column by journalist Alison Frankel reveals the stark bias of U.S. Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan against the Ecuadorians who recently won an $18 billion judgment against the oil giant for oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest.

Frankel’s column makes clear that even though Chevron’s charges against the Ecuadorians focus largely on one of their lawyers, Steven Donziger, Judge Kaplan has refused to allow Donziger and his attorneys to participate in an upcoming trial on the enforceability of the Ecuadorian judgment.

It’s also clear from the mountain of trial discovery that Chevron is demanding from Donziger, the other attorneys in the case (even interns!) and the Ecuadorians that the oil giant fully intends to drag Donziger center stage into the trial.

Frankel quotes from the legal brief, asking Judge Kaplan for fairness:

“If what actually happened in Ecuador matters at all to the court's decision, the court should let Donziger intervene, grant the Lago Agrio plaintiffs' motion (for more time) and let the parties conduct a real, not show, trial," states the brief, written by Donziger’s law firm, Keker & Van Nest.

Frankel includes this statement from the brief:

"The exclusion of Donziger from full intervention in this 'do-over' trial has reached the point of absurdity. The trial will be about him, and he won't be there to defend himself against Chevron calumny."

Frankel reported that Judge Kaplan even went so far as to deny Donziger attorney John Keker the right to speak on a telephone conference call with the judge and Chevron’s lawyers.

She wrote from the transcript of an August 2nd phone conference. “At the end of the conference, John Keker said, ‘Your honor, can I say something?’ Kaplan replied: ‘No, Mr. Keker. You're not in the case for this purpose. You're being given the courtesy of being conferenced in but the scope of your intervention has been fixed.’"

Meanwhile the Ecuadorians, represented by Smyser, Kaplan & Veselka, see Judge Kaplan’s actions as proof of his bias.

"Judge Kaplan encouraged Chevron to file the lawsuit against Steven Donziger and when Donziger demanded an immediate jury trial Judge Kaplan all but directed Chevron to drop him as a defendant," said the Ecuadorians’ spokeswoman Karen Hinton. "Now he won't let Donziger anywhere near his courtroom. This is turning into a home-cooked judicial bailout for Chevron."

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Car Talk Advice: Don’t Buy Gas From Chevron

Here’s some more sound automobile advice from Car Talk: Don’t buy gas at Chevron stations. See article here

Jamie Lincoln Kitman, New York bureau chief for Automobile Magazine and automotive editor for GQ magazine, says Chevron’s “epic despoiling” of the Ecuadorian rainforest is “right up there with the worst in the oil industry’s oversubscribed Hall of Shame.”

“In fact, it may even make BP look good.”

Kitman posted to the popular NPR show’s Web site, where he is a contributor, here:

So if you’re the kind of person who boycotted BP after the Gulf disaster, Kitman says, you may want to consider passing by Chevron stations, too.

The blog has been getting hits; there were more than 30 comments posted recently, most of them like these:

Just one more example of big corporation greediness outdone only by their lawyer’s sleaziness!
 
Thanks for the info. I’ll put them on my posilutely not to be used list!

Eye-opening. Thank you very much for writing this.

The record, says Kitman, “reveals that Texaco and Chevron have outdone themselves even by the low standards of their industry.” (Chevron bought Texaco, which did the actual polluting, and assumed its liability.)

That isn’t, of course, just Kitman’s opinion. The Ecuadorian court hearing the epic 20-year lawsuit the victims filed against Chevron agreed in February. Chevron, which once wanted the suit heard in Ecuador, now of course wants to move the fight back to the U.S. – just one of many astoundingly dilatory tactics Chevron’s lawyers have deployed against the 30,000 people whose land and water was befouled with toxins.

So Chevron, as Kitman writes, “is back to papering plaintiffs to death, with endless discovery requests hurled at [the Ecuadorians’ lawyer], as well as former interns, associates and lawyers on the case.”

“But whatever happens,” Kitman concludes,  “you may want to stay out of Chevron stations for some time to come.”

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Chevron’s Favorite Blogger, Zennie Abraham:

Is He On The Chevron Payroll Or Just A Punk for Corporate Interests?
 Should The San Francisco Chronicle Disclose Zennie’s Conflict of Interest?

Zennie Abraham, a San Francisco-based blogger who has been quick to judge other people’s “ethics” around seemingly unrelated controversies, may have his own ethical, if not, legal problems, a source tells The Chevron Pit.




Zennie Abraham

Out of respect for the source’s wishes, we won’t repeat the details of his problems now but, when made public, they may end Zennie’s bizarre association with many Bay Area companies that he defends and praises in his online rants, including the country’s third largest corporation, Chevron.


Chevron has a long and sordid history with writers, like Zennie, pretending to be something they are not so Chevron can circulate its deceptions about the company’s intentional contamination of the Ecuadorian rainforest. Just recently a pro-Chevron blogger, Alex Thorne, tried to pass himself off as a serious journalist by emailing pro-environment groups questions about their funding. He recently closed down his blog because of the controversy. And, then there was the classic Chevron stunt of trying to pay a real journalist $20,000 to spy on sick Ecuadorians to determine if they really had illnesses. She declined and then wrote about it! And, we can’t forget Chevron’s hiring a former CNN anchor to fake a newscast sympathetic to the company.


As for Zennie, he has been throwing Google bombs our way for years. His blogs are predictable and usually worth ignoring.


But, our source’s latest bit of news motivated us to take a closer look at Zennie’s blogs, which on the surface appear to be this random selection of Bay Area controversies mixed in with sports news and inappropriate videos of women.


After about 15 minutes of playing mix and match online, it wasn’t hard to figure out the common denominator: Sam Singer.


Sam Singer, a San Francisco public relations executive, promotes himself as “The Fixer” and lists a number of corporate clients on his web site that he has “fixed” things for, including Chevron and, oddly enough, The San Francisco Chronicle which, by the way, runs Zennie’s blog regularly on its City Brights site.



Sam Singer

Singer came to our attention in 2008 when Chevron retained him to smear the highly-respected Goldman Foundation and its award of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize to Luis Yanza and Pablo Fajardo, two Ecuadorian leaders in the effort to cleanup the contamination that Chevron left behind in the rainforest.


For the most part, Singer didn’t have much luck with his smear campaign, but Zennie came to his rescue scoring critical blogs about the two award-winning Ecuadorians and many other blogs related to their lawsuit against Chevron.


Zennie has come to Singer’s rescue of his corporate clients many times before and since:

Singer also represents the California Pacific Medical Center. Zennie writes favorably about the California Pacific Medical Center.


Singer also represents Page Mill Properties. Zennie writes favorably about Page Mill Properties.


Singer also represents Recology. Zennie writes favorably of Recology.


Singer also represents Calpine. Zennie writes favorably of Calpine.


We quickly grew weary, mixing and matching Singer’s client list with Zennie’s blogs, but you get the picture.


Zennie disavows any financial relationship with Singer or his clients, saying he simply believes in these companies’ positions. As you might have guessed by now, we don’t believe him.


We are not the only ones either. San Francisco’s alternative online newspaper, Beyond Chron: The Voice of the Rest, was the first to notice.


We would encourage the other San Francisco newspaper, The Chronicle, to require Zennie to disclose his relationship with Singer and his clients, given that Zennie has no other explanation for this odd alignment of interests other than “coincidence.”


And, based on our sources, The Chronicle may want to take a closer, “ethical” look at one of their most prolific bloggers before they, too, have some explaining to do.

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American Judge Heaps Insults On Ecuadorian Indigenous Plaintiffs

U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s distaste for the Ecuadorians suing Chevron was on clear display recently in his order denying their motion to recuse him for his apparent bias against their lawsuit in Ecuador.

Kaplan repeatedly has sided with Chevron's increasingly desperate efforts to escape the $18 billion Ecuador judgment against the company. An Ecuador judge in February found that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into streams and rivers, decimating indigenous groups in the Amazon and creating an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related diseases.

In the meantime, Kaplan has heaped insult after insult on the Ecuadorians who against all odds brought the lawsuit almost two decades ago against one of the world's largest and most powerful corporations. Kaplan is overseeing one of Chevron's many attacks against the Ecuador judgment in the U.S.

Among the many complaints in the motion to recuse Kaplan and a Writ of Mandamus submitted to the Second Circuit of Appeals in New York, lawyers for the Ecuadorians cited Kaplan’s repeated description of their clients as the “so-called Lago Agrio plaintiffs” as evidence that he is questioning their very existence.

In denying the motion to recuse, Kaplan begins his order with: The "so-called Lago Agrio plaintiffs" (emphasis added) recently obtained a multibillion dollar judgment against Chevron Corporation from a provincial court in Ecuador for alleged environmental pollution by Texaco, Inc. Find it here.

In the Writ, Patton Boggs lawyer James Tyrrell, who represents the Ecuadorians, wrote:

"…in an act of apparent spite wholly inconsistent with any notion of detached impartiality, the first six words of Judge Kaplan's Recusal Memorandum Opinion are 'the so-called Lago Agrio plaintiffs.'"

Tyrrell continued:

"From the beginning, Judge Kaplan has been careful to qualify his reference to the Ecuadorian Plaintiffs with the derisive modifier 'so-called' lest he advertently confer any semblance of legitimacy on these people,"

Tyrrell also noted that Kaplan once described the Ecuadorian plaintiffs as "a number of indigenous peoples said to reside in the Amazon rainforest."

An Amazon Defense Coalition press release provides more details.

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Chevron Groupie Posing As Journalist Removes His Blog From Web

Looks like Chevron groupie Alex Thorne has ended his short-lived career as a “journalist.” After the Amazon Defense Coalition issued a press release exposing Thorne masquerading as a journalist in an effort to undermine funding for an environmental advocacy group, Thorne deleted his blog and appears to be taking a hiatus from posting articles.

Karen Hinton, who represents the Ecuadorians suing Chevron for oil contamination, suggests that Thorne focus on his children, a worthy profession. Thorne admitted to Hinton last week that he was a “bored stay-at-home Dad,” not a journalist.

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Once Again Chevron Masquerades As A News Organization

Uses Employee’s Spouse -- A “Stay-Home Dad” -- To Undermine Environmental Group Critical Of Its Contaminated Legacy In Ecuador

In a press release issued today, the Amazon Defense Coalition revealed another example of Chevron posing as an independent “journalist” to send e-mails to funders of a small environmental organization that has been critical of Chevron’s management for refusing to pay the company’s court-ordered $18 billion liability in Ecuador.

This stunning revelation about Thorne’s e-mails comes just days after several large Chevron shareholders blasted Chevron CEO John Watson for displaying "poor judgment" in Ecuador which “has led investors to question whether [Chevron’s] leadership can properly manage the array of environmental challenges and risks that it faces.” The comments from the investors, who manage a combined $156 billion in assets and include New York’s pension fund, are contained in a letter sent to Chevron.

Alex Thorne

Thorne recently sent e-mails to several funders of the U.S.-based environmental group Amazon Watch in which he claimed to be working on an “article” for a publication he refused to specify. He also did not use his last name in the email, signing it only as “Alex.” The e-mails then asked the funders “if it is time” to “reevaluate” their support for Amazon Watch in light of Chevron’s oft-criticized claim that the 18-year legal case is part of an extortion racket.

Thorne is married to Kristen Thorne, Chevron’s senior policy advisor on environment and energy issues. Alex Thorne did not disclose in the emails to Amazon Watch’s funders that he is married to a high-level Chevron employee or that he has operated a pro-Chevron website critical of the leaders of the Ecuador lawsuit.

“Alex Thorne’s phony emails are part of Chevron’s Karl Rove-style campaign designed to intimidate American citizens who are trying to hold Chevron accountable for committing environmental crimes and fraud in Ecuador,” said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorian communities who brought the lawsuit.

In one email to the Moriah Fund, which was forwarded to Amazon Watch, Alex Thorne says: “I’m writing an article highlighting Amazon Watch’s top donors which will include mentioning the Moriah Fund… My article highlights organizations such as yours and questions whether it is time to reevaluate your support for Amazon Watch.”

Representatives of the Amazon communities have long charged that Chevron committed environmental crimes in Ecuador and that its “extortion” claim is nothing more than a last-ditch ploy to mislead shareholders. Two Chevron employees are currently under criminal indictment in Ecuador for lying about the results of a purported environmental cleanup that the plaintiffs say was a clear case of fraud.

Amazon Watch, which is based in San Francisco near Chevron headquarters, has a handful of staff members and a $950,000 annual budget. In contrast, Chevron has 62,000 employees and grossed $204 billion last year, or an amount roughly 200,000 times more than Amazon Watch’s annual expenditures.

Despite their lack of resources, Amazon Watch’s staff members have had an outsized impact on Chevron. They have infuriated Chevron’s management by filing complaints against the oil giant with the Securities and Exchange Commission, by confronting the company’s Board of Directors during shareholder meetings, and by organizing protests outside the home of Chevron CEO Watson.

Just last week at Chevron’s annual meeting, Amazon Watch Executive Director Atossa Soltani accused Watson of having a personal conflict of interest over the Ecuador issue while several Chevron Board members looked on in stunned silence.

Along with lawyers for the Ecuadorians, Amazon Watch also has accused Chevron of engaging in a Nixon-style “dirty tricks” campaign in Ecuador designed to sabotage the trial. These activities have been summarized in the sworn affidavit of Ecuador attorney Juan Pablo Saenz, filed in multiple courts and available here.

Chevron’s larger problem is that an Ecuador court in February imposed a cleanup tab of $18 billion for the deliberate discharge of billions of gallons of toxic waste into streams and rivers of the Amazon rainforest, where the company operated (via predecessor company Texaco) from 1964 to 1992. Chevron’s substandard operational practices in Ecuador – admitted to by the company at trial -- decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related diseases that will haunt tens of thousands of people for decades without a comprehensive remediation, according to evidence submitted by the plaintiffs.

For most of 2009, Alex Thorne maintained a website where he regularly attacked the leaders of the Ecuador lawsuit and Hinton.

After Hinton wrote in a press release about his wife’s participation in a “green technology” panel discussion that failed to describe Chevron’s environmental disaster in Ecuador, Alex Thorne created a separate website called “Hinton Communications Watch” that was designed to intimidate Hinton into stopping her work for the Ecuadorian indigenous communities, said Hinton. Alex Thorne later took down the websites and at the time apologized to Hinton.

This is not Chevron’s first attempt to use the image of independent journalists as cover for its campaign to undermine the legal claims of the impoverished Ecuadorian communities, said Hinton.

Last year, Chevron was caught trying to pay American free lance journalist Mary Cudahee $20,000 to spy on the plaintiffs in Ecuador by pretending she was conducting research for an article. Cudahee exposed the effort in The Atlantic.

In 2009, just days before a 60 Minutes segment critical of Chevron’s misconduct in Ecuador was slated to air, the company posted on the internet a pro-Chevron corporate video on Ecuador narrated by former CNN correspondent Gene Randall that was designed to look like a legitimate news broadcast. Chevron hid its role in paying for the production of Randall’s video until it was exposed by The New York Times.

Nor is Chevron shy about pushing the envelope when attacking its many vocal critics on the Ecuador issue.

Chevron CEO Watson ordered the arrest of five shareholder critics at the company’s 2010 annual meeting; Chevron took out newspaper advertisements attacking the U.S.-based Goldman Foundation for awarding its prestigious environmental prize to advocates for the Ecuadorian victims of Chevron’s human rights abuses; and Chevron recently filed a racketeering lawsuit in the U.S. federal court against 47 Ecuadorian villagers and their lawyers that named Amazon Watch as a “co-conspirator”.

Hinton noted that Chevron has been advised by CRC Public Relations, which launched the Swift Boat attacks ads that targeted 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry. CRC has close ties to the far right of the Republican Party and is a darling of the Tea Party movement.

CRC is one of at least six public relations firms and four corporate law firms used by Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate to deal with negative fallout from the Ecuador judgment, apparently the largest environmental liability in history other than the BP Gulf spill, said Hinton. Pate is a former high-level political appointee in the U.S. Department of Justice under President George W. Bush and is the person responsible for Chevron’s Ecuador litigation strategy, she added.

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Chevron’s Big, Fat Lies To U.S. Judges.

Oil Giant Met With Independent Court Expert, Later Refused To Pay Him After He Found Toxins At So-Called “Remediated” Sites

Chevron has been caught in yet another big, fat lie told to a dozen or more U.S. federal judges about interactions with court-appointed technical experts in the landmark trial in Ecuador over massive oil contamination of the rainforest.

Attorneys for Chevron’s Gibson Dunn have argued in American courts that inappropriate meetings took place between court-appointed technical experts and the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, who recently won an $18 billion judgment in an Ecuadorian court, after eight years of attempted efforts by Chevron to derail the lawsuit in the South American country.

Before these U.S. judges, the Ecuadorians’ attorneys have argued that such meetings were allowed, and the Ecuadorian judge, who ruled in their favor, found no wrongdoing in regard to meetings between the plaintiffs and court experts.

Recently, the Ecuadorians submitted to a U.S. court an October 29, 2010 letter written to Ecuadorian Judge Nicholas Zambrano by Dr. Marcel Muñoz Herrería, a neutral expert appointed by the court at Chevron’s request to conduct contamination testing at four oil well sites in March 2009. In the letter, Muñoz reveals that he met with Chevron officials for a “technical planning meeting” at Hotel Coca prior to the testing.

The plaintiffs also met with court-appointed experts for technical planning meetings, but Chevron maintains these meetings are inappropriate and point to them as evidence of fraud, which the Ecuadorians deny.

Muñoz wrote Judge Zambrano requesting that he be paid for the expert reports that he produced. Chevron refused to pay him because his reports found illegal levels of toxins at oil sites that Chevron claims had been cleaned. See here and here.

Interestingly, Chevron’s self-proclaimed “dirty tricks” operative Diego Borja was last seen working for Chevron at these oil sites. Borja has admitted that Chevron tampered with evidence at the oil sites.

And, for those of you following the Borja story closely, you will remember that a legal correspondent recently reported that Chevron has paid Borja at least $364,000 since the company moved him and his family from Quito to the U.S.  Exactly what these payments are for is known only to Chevron and its lawyers at Gibson Dunn and Jones Day.

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New Shareholder Report Warns Chevron Investors of Risks Surrounding $18 Billion Ecuador Environmental Liability

Financial Analyst Raises Questions Over Chevron Management of Litigation & Misleading Disclosures to Shareholders

Raising the eyebrows of Chevron shareholders is a new report on the financial and operational risks to the company over its $18b legal liability for illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. It warns investors about “misleading” disclosures made by Chevron’s management about the “significant risk” the liability poses to the company’s business and value.

Noted shareholder risk analyst Simon Billenness and shareholder-rights attorney Sanford Lewis authored the independent report, entitled “An Analysis of the Financial and Operational Risks to Chevron Corporation from Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco.” It was released as Chevron prepares for a May 25th annual meeting where shareholders are expected to voice their concern about Chevron’s handling of the lawsuit.

Billenness and Lewis write:

“While Chevron has admitted in sworn legal statements that the company is at risk of ‘irreparable injury to [its] business reputation and business relationships’ from potential enforcement of the Ecuadorian court’s judgment, the company has failed to characterize these risks to the company in its public filings and statements to shareholders.”

For example, the report describes Chevron’s assertion in its 10-K SEC filings that Ecuador’s courts “lack jurisdiction over Chevron” as “misleading” based on the company’s failure to disclose that the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Chevron “assured the district court that it would recognize the binding nature of any judgment issued in Ecuador…As a result, that promise, along with Texaco’s more general promises to submit to Ecuadorian jurisdiction, is enforceable against Chevron in this action and any future proceedings between the parties.”

Nell Minow, a leading expert on corporate governance and investing, reviewed the report and found it “hard to dispute … that the company’s admissions about its liability risks in court documents are inconsistent with its financial reports and that its legal and public relations strategy poses an unacceptably high risk.” See her article here.

Meanwhile, Robert Kropp, a financial writer for Socialfunds.com, reported that “Trillium and its co-filers are preparing an Investor Statement, in which the company's failure to negotiate a settlement in the lawsuit raises questions about its ability to manage risks associated with environmental and human rights issues. Echoing the findings of Billenness and Lewis, it calls on the company to provide full disclosure of the risks associated with enforcement of the judgment in Ecuador.” Read his article here

Billenness and Lewis also criticize the Chevron board of directors for their failure to fulfill their duties to oversee management and respond to shareholder concerns regarding the Ecuador liability. According to the report, the board has been “unresponsive” to approaches by shareholders to discuss concerns regarding managements and quantification of the Ecuador litigation’s risk and liabilities.

“These choices may lead some investors to question the adequacy of the company’s public statements and disclosures and whether the board and management are fulfilling their fiduciary duties to properly manage this significant risk to the company’s business and value,” the report concludes.

See these stories for more information here and here.

The 2011 report is simply the latest in a long series of concerns expressed by shareholders over the company’s management of its environmental liabilities in Ecuador. As early as 2003, shareholders filed the first in a series of shareholder resolutions on the issue, culminating in a 2010 shareholder resolution asking Chevron to nominate an independent board member with a “high level of environmental experience” to oversee the company’s environmental actions, including the Ecuador liability.

Despite efforts by Chevron’s management to defeat the 2010 resolution and to downplay the environmental liability in Ecuador, the resolution garnered the support of more than 25% of the outstanding Chevron shares, equal to approximately $38 billion in shareholder value. Typically, any shareholder resolution opposed by management that gains more than 10% of shareholder support is considered a success.

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Potential Witnesses Into Chevron Misconduct Possibly Being Paid Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars By The Oil Giant

One Living “Like A King” In Peru

A Chevron dirty trickster is apparently enjoying the good life on the beaches of Peru after unsuccessfully trying to derail the historic Ecuadorian lawsuit against the oil giant for oil contamination. His partner, another Chevron operative, has been on the Chevron payroll since June 2009, receiving $10,000 to $15,000 a month but doing no legitimate work for the company.

Sounds like a great deal for the two of them, who are both potential witnesses into Chevron’s misconduct in an Ecuadorian court, which recently awarded a group of Ecuadorians an $18 billion judgment against the company for massive oil contamination.

Providing anything of value or benefit to potential witnesses is certainly unethical and could be illegal, if found to influence testimony. But, that hasn’t stopped Chevron.

Chevron operative and drug felon Wayne Hansen, who along with Chevron contractor Diego Borja tried to bribe an Ecuadorian judge in 2009, recently wrote he is living “like a king” on $1,200 a month in a beach town in northern Peru, according to a subscribers-only Reuters story that highlighted an email from Hansen to a private investigative firm hired by the oil giant.

Reuters obtained the email from discovery documents now under seal in the Northern District Court of San Francisco.

The Ecuadorians have been trying to locate Hansen to subpoena him about the bribery scheme. Hansen had been living in Bakersfield, California, while working in concert with the Chevron contractor and self-proclaimed “dirty tricks” operative Diego Borja to bribe a judge hearing the Ecuadorians’ oil contamination lawsuit.

It’s now known that Chevron has paid Borja around $340,000 (if not more), according to the San Francisco Daily Journal, which recently reported that Borja has been receiving payments since June 2009.

Borja and Hansen secretly videotaped the judge after meeting with Chevron’s lawyers in San Ramon, the company’s corporate headquarters. The judge never discusses a bribe and, in fact, leaves the meeting when Hansen mentions it.

A private investigation conducted by the Ecuadorians found that both Borja and Hansen have complained about Chevron not paying them adequately for their bribery sting operation. Borja threatened to reveal evidence it had about Chevron’s misconduct in the Ecuadorian trial if the company did not compensate him appropriately.

Earlier this year the Ecuadorians successfully subpoenaed and deposed Borja but the U.S. federal judge hearing their discovery motion sealed the court documents. Some reporters, though, obtained some of the documents and emails when they were filed in a related case in the Southern District Court of New York.

Information obtained from discovery and three days of depositions by Borja will be used by the Ecuadorians in their and Chevron’s appeal of the $18 billion judgment in Ecuador. It also will be used to defend the Ecuadorians in Chevron’s so-called “extortion” lawsuit in New York federal court.

It is not clear if the San Francisco judge will unseal the documents before the Ecuadorian and U.S. courts hear arguments expected late this year, but it will be interesting when he does.  Stay tuned.

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Chevron fights justice in Ecuador on two fronts, but needs to win everywhere

"I'm not aware of any case where a court has ever even tried to restrain foreign plaintiffs from enforcing a foreign judgment in foreign jurisdictions."

"...even if Chevron wins the enforcement battle in the US, that doesn't end the matter, because the plaintiffs will go to other countries to enforce the judgment. The plaintiffs only need to win once or a few times, while Chevron needs to win everywhere."

Interesting observations from Marco Simon, Legal Director of Earth Rights International, about Chevron's effort to escape the $18 billion Ecuadorian judgment in U.S. federal court.

As Simon points out, Chevron wants an American judge to rule that the Ecuadorian judgment is unenforceable so the oil giant has a legal tool to use in foreign courts to prevent the Ecuadorians from obtaining the award by seizing Chevron's assets in foreign countries. (Chevron has no assets in Ecuador.) To get that ruling, Chevron has to jump a few legal hurdles, like -- Can an American judge tell Ecuadorians what to do, and can the American judge tell other countries' court systems what they can and can't do? Only time will tell, but Simon is exactly right when he says Chevron will have to convince dozens of countries (where Chevron has assets) that an American judge can tell their judges want to do.

Simon wrote:

"The Ecuadorians can go after Chevron in the US, but they can also try to enforce the judgment in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and dozens of other countries where Chevron operates or has assets. Not surprisingly, Chevron is working hard to prevent that….

"...Chevron's entire case is premised on the notion that Judge (Lewis) Kaplan (the American judge) has jurisdiction over the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and other members of the plaintiffs' class action. That is a highly questionable position, and one that will receive considerable scrutiny from the Second Circuit. Even if Judge Kaplan can prevent the American lawyers from proceeding to enforce the judgment, if he doesn't have jurisdiction over the Ecuadorians, he cannot prevent them from going to other countries to seek enforcement."

And, then there is the nagging issue of Chevron's asking Judge Kaplan to act as the world's judiciary police chief.

"The Second Circuit may also be concerned with the propriety of interfering with foreign countries' judicial processes. I'm not aware of any case where a court has ever even tried to restrain foreign plaintiffs from enforcing a foreign judgment in foreign jurisdictions."

Simon also reminds us that Chevron is getting what it asked for:

"Chevron has every opportunity to challenge the judgment in the Ecuadorian courts; Chevron chose to litigate in Ecuador over the plaintiffs' objection, and the Second Circuit may well hold them to that choice. In fact, in a recent decision in a related case, the Second Circuit said that Chevron was bound by its original promise to satisfy any judgments in Plaintiffs' favor, reserving its right to contest their validity only in the limited circumstances permitted by New York's Recognition of Foreign Country Money Judgments Act."

Given Judge Kaplan's comments about Ecuador, its court system and the Ecuadorians themselves, no one thinks he won't rule for Chevron. His bias is obvious. Other judges in other countries may not share his sentiments, however.

"Ultimately, even if Chevron wins the enforcement battle in the US, that doesn't end the matter, because the plaintiffs will go to other countries to enforce the judgment. The plaintiffs only need to win once or a few times, while Chevron needs to win everywhere. Even Chevron wins twenty cases, just one loss could cost the company hundreds of millions or billions of dollars," wrote Simon.

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Accused of Bias, Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan Asked to Stop Presiding over Chevron’s Ecuador Lawsuit

Kaplan Also Trying to Avoid Appellate Review of His “One-Sided” and “Draconian” Decisions In Favor of Chevron

After advising Chevron to file civil criminal charges against the Ecuadorians suing the oil giant for contamination AND to drop one of the Ecuadorians’  lawyers from a charge effectively blocking the lawyer from defending himself.... After concluding that the $18 billion Ecuadorian judgment is likely fraudulent and not enforceable (even before arguments are heard) AND that a U.S. court has jurisdiction not only over Ecuadorians, living 3,000 miles away in the rainforest, but also over the entire Ecuadorian judiciary system, the Ecuadorians have asked that U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan be recused from presiding over Chevron’s lawsuit filed in Kaplan’s court to try and escape justice in the South American country.

In a scorching motion recently filed in the Southern District Court of New York Kaplan is accused of engaging in “gratuitous disparagement” of the 47 named plaintiffs from Ecuador based on his adoption of “Chevron’s world view” that their lawsuit is an elaborate ruse.  Without holding an evidentiary hearing and without considering the voluminous 220,000-page record in the Ecuador trial, Kaplan has issued dozens of rulings to prejudice the Ecuadorians, according to the motion.

“With [Kaplan’s] jaded view obscuring the Ecuadorian’s legitimate claims, the Court developed and displayed a deep-seated antagonism toward the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their counsel,” the motion asserts.  “The court’s prior determinations have infected this proceeding.”

The motion also says Kaplan has cleverly tried to insulate his “Draconian and one-sided” rulings from appellate review by creating the appearance that his decisions are not actually final.  “These efforts to frustrate the appeal, which have become increasingly tortured, indicate a level of personal investment in the outcome of the case that belies objectivity to any reasonable observer,” asserts the motion.

Examples of Kaplan’s bias, or appearance of bias, that are cited in the motion include:

• Kaplan has called the entire Ecuador lawsuit a “game” that sprung from “the imagination of American lawyers” even though there are 64,000 chemical sampling results in evidence as part of a 220,000-page trial record.


• Kaplan has questioned the very existence of the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, repeatedly using the adjective “so-called” to describe them.  The plaintiffs actually are thousands of rainforest residents and members of indigenous groups whose existence has been verified by numerous courts and major media outlets.


• Kaplan has displayed “profound disrespect” for Ecuador’s judicial system, failing to even read the judge’s decision before issuing his preliminary injunction order and then inviting Chevron to bring the racketeering case over which he now presides.


• Kaplan has made numerous intemperate remarks from the bench about the lawyers representing the Ecuadorians and come to conclusions about disputed factual issues that have yet to be tried.  For example, Kaplan apparently believes that Ecuador’s government is at fault for the pollution rather than Chevron – a key disputed issue that already has been decided in favor of the plaintiffs by the Ecuador court that had access to the full trial record.


• Kaplan imposed what the motion calls “Draconian” measures on American lawyer Steven Donziger during an earlier Chevron discovery action, claiming he waived privilege on a minor technicality and forcing him to turn over his entire 18-year case file to Chevron as well as all of his personal files and  hard drives.  Kaplan also forced Donziger to sit for 14 days of depositions conducted by a tag team of Chevron lawyers and a court-appointed Special Master who clearly favored Chevron. 


• Kaplan has created rigid motions schedules designed to prejudice the Ecuadorians and Donziger, systematically denying multiple requests for modest extensions of time to supplement the record after Chevron took months to prepare its lengthy lawsuit.  Kaplan also denied Donziger sufficient time to obtain a lawyer to respond to Chevron’s lawsuit, and then ruled that his lawyer (John Keker) waived the right to oppose Chevron’s request for an injunction.


• The Special Master appointed by Kaplan, Max Gitter, is a former law partner of Kaplan’s at a law firm (Clearly Gottlieb) that does underwriting work for Chevron – posing a clear conflict of interest that neither that has not been disclosed.  According to the motion, Gitter “rapidly became a full-fledged Chevron advocate, actively participating in the examination of Donziger on Chevron’s behalf” and Gitter also “manipulated the answers in Chevron’s favor” by repeatedly refusing to allow Donziger to elaborate in response to Chevron’s barrage of questions.


• Kaplan has shown “flagrant disregard” for the attorney-client privilege, allowing Chevron to question Donziger during depositions about communications with his clients and co-counsel.

“No reasonable person could conclude that a judge who invited, suggested, or encouraged plaintiffs to file a particular action could impartially preside over such an action,” the motion asserted.

U.S. federal law cautions that a judge should recuse himself from “any proceeding in which is partiality might reasonably be questioned.”

The trial record in Ecuador, created over an eight-year time frame, clearly proves Chevron is guilty of creating one of the worst oil-related disasters in history, say the plaintiffs.

On February 14, in a 188-page opinion, Ecuador Judge Nicolas Zambrano found the oil giant liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic “formation water” into the Amazon and then trying to fraudulently cover it up with a sham remediation.  Zambrano imposed $8.6 billion in actual damages on Chevron and an equal amount in punitive damages after finding that the company and its lawyers had engaged in misconduct in the litigation.

Chevron operated a large concession in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, building hundreds of wells and production sites and leaving behind roughly 1,000 unlined waste pits which leach their contents into soils and groundwater, according to the evidence.  Use of the sub-standard practices have decimated indigenous groups and led to widespread health problems.

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Chevron Gets Scared, Moves to Avoid Jury Trial

Chevron has launched yet another front on its endless legal shenanigans. In a desperate attempt to avoid a jury trial, the oil giant has filed papers in Judge Lewis Kaplan’s court seeking to remove Steven Donziger and his highly-respected counsel John Keker out of the first phase of a racketeering case in New York that the oil giant filed in February to try to escape paying an $18 billion judgment in Ecuador for causing massive pollution to the Amazon rainforest.

The Amazon Defense Coalition blasted the oil giant's latest attempt to bully Ecuadorian plaintiffs seeking justice in Amazon:

Chevron is clearly "petrified" of a jury trial against Keker, who is based in San Francisco near the oil giant's headquarters and is widely considered one of America's leading trial lawyers, said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing the oil giant. On behalf of Donziger, Keker has locked horns with New York judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over Chevron's racketeering case in federal court, accusing him of trampling Donziger's due process rights and asking that he reassign the case to another judge.

"With its latest court filing, Chevron is admitting that it does not think its lawyers can win a trial before a jury of impartial American citizens who would likely review evidence of the company's reckless and potentially criminal misconduct in Ecuador," said Hinton.

"This is an extraordinary capitulation prompted by Chevron's desire to avoid having to prove its spurious allegations before an impartial jury," she added.

Donziger has repeatedly demanded to the New York court that he wants to exercise his constitutional right to a jury trial to respond to Chevron's "outrageous" allegations in the racketeering case that the environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, on which he has worked for the better part of two decades, is based on sham evidence. In response, Chevron filed papers late Wednesday seeking to drop Donziger from the first phase of the RICO trial that Kaplan scheduled for November of this year.

"Chevron's lawyers make all sorts of defamatory charges against Steven Donziger, and then they run for the hills when it comes time to put up or shut up," said Juan Pablo Saenz, an Ecuadorian lawyer who represents the plaintiffs. In February, after an eight-year trial that generated more than 200,000 pages of evidence, an Ecuador trial court found Chevron liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon, causing an outbreak of cancer and decimating indigenous groups. Damages were found to be up to $18 billion.

You can read the full release here.

Once again if you read between the lines it should become clear by now that now clear that the RICO charges are a ruse. Chevron’s real agenda is to obtain a ruling from U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan that the recent $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron is unenforceable. Such a ruling could be used as a litigation tool in what will likely be future court disputes about the judgment’s enforcement. Judge Kaplan has not hidden his bias in Chevron’s favor and his utter distaste for the Ecuadorians and their country.

You can bet that the plaintiffs seeking justice against the corrupt oil giant will not be intimidated by this. We hope you and others reading our blog will speak the truth and join our efforts to seek justice today.

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Miami Herald Journalist Proves Chevron Lied About The Remediation

"(Chevron) always show(s) you the shirt the coat and the tie. They never show you the tumor underneath the shirt."

Miami Herald reporter Jim Wyss has caught Chevron in yet another lie about its so-called “remediation” agreement. Wyss toured one of the oil well sites, Sascha 53, that Chevron told both U.S. and Ecuadorian courts had been cleaned.

He described what he saw after a man with him dug just a few inches below the ground in today’s Miami Herald article:

“Within a few inches the dirt gives off the pungent odor of petroleum. Within a few feet the dirt glistens with oil residue. When a few handfuls of the soil are dropped into a bucket of water, a thick oil-slick coats the surface.”

Chevron claims it is not guilty of the contamination in Ecuador because the remediation agreement between Chevron and the Ecuadorian government releases it from any responsibility. However, scientific tests have proven that Chevron has never cleaned up the oil sites mentioned in the agreement.

Today the Amazon Defense Coalition released this press release that argues the reporter’s eye-witness account of the contamination is further evidence that Chevron has lied to U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan who has, by and large, accepted Chevron’s statement that it remediated a small percentage of the oil sites.

The only response Chevron’s spokesperson could come up with was accusing Ecuadorians of “spiking” the ground with oil themselves.

Wyss quoted Donald Moncayo, a representative of the Ecuadorians, saying:

"They (Chevron) always show you the shirt the coat and the tie," he said of the area, called Sacha 53, which is now pastureland and spindly trees. "They never show you the tumor underneath the shirt."

"This is their remediation effort," Moncayo says. "They're no better than animals."

Exactly.

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Speak Truth & Join Our Conspirators’ Club Today!

The spokesperson for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs warned public interest advocates this week in an oped in the Capitol Hill publication, The Hill, against criticizing powerful interests for their misconduct, as the lawyers, environmentalists and other supporters have done in the 18-year-old litigation against Chevron for oil contamination in the Ecuador rainforest.

Simply speaking the truth might make you a co-conspirator to extortion and racketeering!

The oped, entitled Standing Up To Chevron, reveals how utterly ridiculous Chevron’s extortion and racketeering charges are. Chevron is portraying the plaintiffs and their consultants and supporters as “Mafia thugs” because they have tried to tell the story of Chevron’s criminal behavior in Ecuador to news reporters and elected officials with the hope they will obtain a damage award or a settlement to cleanup the contamination.

Karen Hinton, the spokesperson, wrote:

“I admit we have not been kind to Chevron. We have told our story largely through the news media, including a devastating “60 Minutes” segment. We have written hundreds of critical press releases and blogs. We met with Members of Congress to mitigate Chevron’s lobbying to end U.S. trade preferences with Ecuador, which the company sought in retaliation for our lawsuit. We complained to Attorneys Generals about Chevron’s withholding information to shareholders about potential liabilities. And we alerted Ecuadorian officials to Chevron’s fraudulent cleanup and urged an investigation.

“Fairly basic tactics for public advocacy campaigns. Hardly ripped from the pages of the Godfather series.”

As ludicrous as the charges are, Hinton warned against the ramification of the charges and a U.S. Court’s decision to allow them to be filed.

“The chilling message of (the judge’s) ruling should make many professionals think twice about taking on powerful interests. Public relations executives representing corporations on either side of litigation could be accused of conspiring to drive down stock prices. Lobbyists could be named as racketeers seeking to put a competitor out of business. Issue a critical press release or meet with a public official, and accusations will fly about extorting and shaking down profitable companies.”

Read between the lines and it becomes clear that the extortion charges are a ruse. Chevron’s real agenda is to obtain a ruling from U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan that the recent $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron is unenforceable. Such a ruling could be used as a litigation tool in what will likely be future court disputes about the judgment’s enforcement. Judge Kaplan has not hidden his bias in Chevron’s favor and his utter distaste for the Ecuadorians and their country. See recent Chevron Pit blogs here and here. The Southern District Court judge made that very clear when he enjoined the Ecuadorian plaintiffs from enforcing the judgment anywhere in the world, a decision that they steadfastly reject.

Hinton wrote:

“A Chevron lobbyist once remarked about the lawsuit: ‘We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this – companies that have made big investments around the world.’

“Hopefully, Chevron's attempt to criminalize public interest advocacy will be thwarted on appeal and "little countries" and their people will have the chance to hold corporations accountable for improper conduct. Meanwhile, if you are in the advocacy field, think twice before you hit the send button on that next blog or press release -- or be prepared to join me in the co-conspirator's club.”

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Chevron Raises CEO John Watson’s Salary As Americans Place Oil Giant In “Least Reputable” Category. Even Watson’s Own Neighbors Don’t Like Him!

News from Chevron: The oil giant has raised CEO John Watson’s salary by 7 percent to $1.6 million. Chevron’s Board may like his performance, but most Americans do not. A survey found that Chevron was one of the least reputable American corporations; it ranked 124 out of 150.

John Watson

And Rainforest Action Network blogger, Linda Capato, discovered that Watson’s own neighbors don’t approve of his practices and policies, especially those in the Ecuadorian rainforest, where Chevron intentionally dumped over 18 billion gallons of toxic sludge into the soil and waterways. Capato wrote about her trip to Watson’s neighborhood.

”We’ve been handing out flyers to residents of Lafayette, CA, which is a relatively small suburban community. Folks here are super nice and really receptive to our message. We’ve felt really welcomed in this tiny hamlet. In fact, just yesterday, we met many of Watson’s close personal friends, most of which responded very openly and warmly to us. One friend of his let us know that she plans on telling him exactly how she feels on the issue, and how wrong she really thinks he is by not taking responsibility for his company’s toxic mess. Once she saw the flyer, she responded by saying, “Yeah, what they’re doing is just wrong, they should take responsibility, and I plan on telling him more.”

An Ecuador court recently awarded the indigenous peoples of the rainforest a $9.5 billion judgment to clean up the contamination, but as The Thin Green Line reports, Chevron is refusing to pay. This means that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing Chevron must request a court in another country to enforce the judgment since Chevron has sold all its assets in Ecuador. Meanwhile, Chevron is trying to block enforcement of the judgment in the United States, while continuing to sell its assets in countries that might hold Chevron accountable for its actions. One of the lawyers for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs said in a recent press release:

“While the Ecuadorian Plaintiffs and their counsel may be unable to take any steps to even prepare for enforcement proceedings, (a U.S. court) allows Chevron a generous window of time within which to divest itself of overseas assets that might be used to enforce the Ecuadorian Judgment,” wrote Julio C. Gomez of Gomez LLC and Carlos A. Zelaya, II of F. Gerald Maples PA.”

This is one more example of Chevron’s misconduct in its global massive scheme to avoid taking responsibility for what it did to Ecuador’s rainforest and its people and culture. Spread the word. If more people knew, Chevron would rank 150th, right at the bottom.

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