Check This Out!

Some must read blogs and articles (short and sweet):

Chevron: You Break it! You Fix it!

Chevron: How Low Can You Go?

AmericaBlog: Oil companies delay with hopes problems go away.


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Ecuador Appellate Court Says Ecuadorians’ Human Rights Take Precedent

Chevron’s secret arbitration panel has demanded that Ecuador do the oil giant’s bidding and stop enforcement of the $18 billion judgment against the company. Chevron has tried to convince journalists covering the case that the panel has the authority to tell another country’s court system what to do.

Prestigious international jurists have said nonsense. Human rights and trade groups in the U.S. have said nonsense.

Now the Ecuador court system has weighed in, too.

“A simple arbitration award, although it may bind Ecuador, cannot obligate Ecuador’s judges to violate the human rights of our citizens. That would not only run counter to the rights guaranteed by our Constitution, but would also violate the most important international obligations assumed by Ecuador in matters of human rights.”

“…this Division finds that no court in Ecuador has power or legal foundation that exceeds Article 11 of the Cassation Act on which to support the possibility of suspending the processing, hearing, or enforcement of any legal proceeding without incurring severe, even criminal, liability with respect to the parties.”

Exactly, and enough said.

Now watch a video that tells the true story about Chevron in Ecuador at www.chevrontoxico.com

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Shocking New Video Exposes Chevron's Crimes & Fraud In Ecuador

Take 15 minutes of your day and watch this shocking new video that exposes Chevron's crimes and fraud in Ecuador.

Chevron's lawyers, lobbyists, and public relations firms have tried everything to distract attention away from the suffering of the Ecuadorians who have been forced to live with the contamination Chevron left in the rainforest after exploring for oil from 1964 to 1990. Chevron has even accused the Ecuadorians of fraud in an attempt to turn its victims into criminals.

This video reminds us what the lawsuit is all about -- the families who have lost loved ones to cancer and other oil-related illnesses all because Chevron used the most inexpensive methods to extract oil to maximize its profits.

The True Story of Chevron's Ecuador Disaster from Amazon Watch on Vimeo.

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Chevron Says The Darndest Things

Actually They Are Pretty Shocking

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

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

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

Here are just a few for your reading astonishment.

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

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

****

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

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

****

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

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

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

****

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

-- A Chevron spokesperson to the New York Times.


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Prestigious Legal Experts Slam Chevron's Secretive Panel of Private Attorneys Who Seek to Kill $18 Billion Judgment

Prestigious international legal experts are demanding that the United Nations step in and end efforts by a secretive arbitration panel of private attorneys, with close ties to Chevron, to block enforcement of the $18 billion judgment against the oil giant.

Read this recent post on The Chevron Pit and by the Rainforest Action Network for details.

Calling the panel's actions a "travesty" and "misuse" of power, the letters reflect growing international support for the Ecuadorians who fought the company for 18 years to obtain the judgment, which will ensure a cleanup of the toxic brew Chevron left in the soil and water in the rainforest and will provide health care and clean drinking water for the residents. Chevron, who has refused to pay the judgment, sold all its assets in Ecuador, requiring the Ecuadorians to enforce the judgment in other countries where Chevron has assets. 

While the Ecuadorians do not believe that a legitimate court will recognize the panel's recent rulings, they are outraged that Chevron is being allowed to try and stop enforcement of the judgment in what they refer to as a "kangaroo court."

Below are excerpts from the letters and links to them. 

Letter from the Andean Commission of Jurists to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon  

"These communities recently obtained a legitimate and valid judgment in the court system of Ecuador that was chosen by Chevron as the venue for the litigation. Despite its previous stipulations to United States federal courts that it would respect any judgment from Ecuador, Chevron continues to use questionable litigation tactics to deny those injured any forum to seek justice and compensation for their injuries. The latest such tactic is the misuse by Chevron of ... an arbitration... to force Ecuador's government to violate international law and quash the human rights of its own citizens by essentially nullifying the result of their case after almost two decades of litigation." 

The Andean Commission, which has consulting status with the United Nations, is one of the leading human rights organizations in South America. Its board members include Diego Garcia-Sayan, the former Chief Justice of the Inter-American Human Rights Court; renowned investor-state arbitrator Pedro Nikken; and other distinguished jurists from Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

Letter from five prestigious international jurists to Renaud Sorieul, the Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law 


"Allowing (arbitration) panels to determine recognition and enforcement issues in private litigation transforms them into venues of final appeal in a way that was never intended and offends the inherent trustworthiness of legal systems around the world to determine matters for themselves....(Treaty) panel awards ordering States to interfere in private judicial proceedings between different parties is a direct violation of well settled principles of sovereignty and, in this particular case, human rights under international law."

Letter from distinguished international law jurist Jose Daniel Amado to U.N. Secretary General Ki-moon


"Chevron has constructed what appears to be a calculated plan to manipulate a commercial investment dispute system to evade the outcome of a private litigation....(the panel) makes a travesty of the bilateral commercial treaty system...(and its rulings represent an) "illegal expansion of arbitral powers with wide-ranging implications for well-settled principles of international law, including fundamental human rights and state sovereignty."



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These Three Men Think They Have Power To Kill The Ecuadorians' Judgment Against Chevron

Here's Why They Can't: It's Against The Law

These three men

Horacio Grigeria Naon

Vaughan Lowe

V.V. Veeder

think they can demand that the Government of Ecuador instruct its judiciary system to protect the interests of this man, the CEO and Chairman of the Chevron Corporation,

Chevron CEO John Watson

by undoing an $18 billion judgment in Ecuador against his company for massive contamination of the rainforest.

They are private arbitration lawyers who belong to a secret club, called the Permanent Court of Arbitration, otherwise known as a "Kangaroo Court." See this blog by the Rainforest Action Network.

They pretend to be part of The Hague, but they aren't. They simply have office space there, and they mostly meet in rented hotel conference rooms in cities across the globe. The lawyers sometimes act as "judges" on the panel, but other times they represent their corporate clients, making millions of dollars on each case. It's a very chummy club with everybody rubbing everybody's back -- except the impoverished people who are often harmed by their actions.

Of late, they and other lawyers like them have been abusing provisions found in bilateral investment treaties between countries to protect many multinational corporations -- Chevron being the most recent. See this link at Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch web site for other examples.

Here's how it works: Countries sign investment treaties with provisions designed primarily -- or so the countries thought -- to encourage economic growth and create jobs for their citizens. Sometimes corporations doing business in a foreign country don't like the way they are being treated, so they have the ability under many of the treaties to file an arbitration claim against the foreign government for relief. Mostly the claims are about commercial disputes that go before these private arbitration lawyers tasked with resolving the problem.

In the Chevron case, though, it's about much, much more.

The oil giant has convinced the panel to take an unprecedented step: demand Ecuador violate its Constitution by interfering in its judiciary system. The arbitration lawyers, meeting this weekend in closed-door sessions in Washington, DC, have ordered Ecuador to block enforcement of the Ecuadorians' judgment -- a violation of not only Ecuador's Constitution but international law and long-standing human rights treaties. Chevron and Watson aren't stopping there, though. They want Ecuador to pay the judgment or even have the case dismissed altogether.

Imagine the White House telling the U.S. Supreme Court -- only a few blocks from where the arbitration lawyers are huddled this weekend -- to dismiss a recent ruling. That is why Chevron wants to happen in Ecuador.

The whole thing is a charade and mocks the justice that the Ecuadorians seek after having their lives, land, and water ruined with toxic poison during three decades of oil drilling and exploration by Chevron.

Meanwhile, the Ecuadorians are not deterred. They are moving forward with their $18 billion judgment and are preparing to enforce soon in countries where Chevron has assets. Ecuador's government has ignored the panel's demand and is standing firmly behind the findings of its court system.

The Ecuadorians do not believe the findings of this kangaroo court will impact their ability to enforce in courtrooms, not in the control of a chummy, secret pack of expensive lawyers.

And, they have international experts from across the globe backing them up. See here and here . They have written the United Nations to protest that the arbitration's findings "offends ... legal systems" everywhere.

“Allowing (arbitration) panels to determine recognition and enforcement issues in private litigation transforms them into venues of final appeal in a way that was never intended and offends the inherent trustworthiness of legal systems around the world to determine matters for themselves,” they wrote.

Read this Courthouse News story for more details.

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Secret Arbitration "Club" Meets This Weekend In DC On Ecuador Case

After having lost on the merits in Ecuador and U.S. courts, Chevron has turned to a secret panel of private lawyers, nicknamed "The Club," to help the company avoid paying a dime of the $18 billion judgment against it for the deliberate poisoning of the rainforest.

Chevron is trying to use a controversial private enforcement process under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty that, in Chevron's mind, empowers the panel to direct a sovereign nation to interfere in its judiciary system.

In fact, the BIT, as it is known, seeks to protect the respective national court systems from interference.

The arbitration panel hearing Chevron's claim against Ecuador has no authority to suspend enforcement of or alter a judgment rendered by a sovereign country’s court system, as Chevron demands.

Yet, this closed-door panel will conduct hearings this Saturday and Sunday (February 11-12) in a rented room in Washington, DC, as if it did.

In many cases, critics say, these investor-state arbitrations are highly conflicted and are nothing more than opportunities for the secret "Club" members to make millions in fees.

Just this past January at the National Press Club, DC-based arbitration lawyer Gary Horlick has this to say before a Global Business Dialogue audience -- the club's trade association: "It’s (investor-state arbitrations) great for lawyers, believe me. The average legal fee ... is $3 million, so it is big business."

Big business indeed.

It gets even worse: club members rotate as lawyers representing clients and as panelists who issue rulings about claims. In one claim, a lawyer appears with his client. In another claim, he appears as a panelist before a lawyer who may have ruled his way on a previous panel.

You cannot attend nor can the Ecuadorians, who are locked out of hearings about their long and hard-fought battle against one of the most powerful and influential oil companies in the world. They are completely dependent upon the Ecuador government's lawyers to defend them.

They will have their voice heard, though, outside the hearings, where the Ecuadorians and their environmental supporters here in the U.S. will speak out against the proceedings on Friday, the day before the hearings, and on Saturday.

They will argue that no laws or treaties empowers a private tribunal to provide relief that would demand a sovereign nation interfere in its judiciary system, violating its Constitution as well as international and human rights laws.

Imagine what would happen if the White House directed the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse one of its decisions because an international tribunal declared it illegitimate. There’s no word to describe such an event because it would never happen in this country.

Public Citizen, Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network are standing up to Chevron's kangaroo court by organizing the rally and conducting a Teach-In at American University about Chevron's abuse of the arbitration process.

We encourage all Chevron Pit readers in Washington, DC to attend:

Teach-In, February 9th, Thursday, 7-9 pm, American University: School of International Service Atrium, AW Main Campus, 4400 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington D.C., (202) 885-3264

Humberto Piaguage, Spokesperson for the Secoya Indigenous Organization of Ecuador and a representative of the Ecuadorians suing Chevron

Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Division

Aaron Page, Forum Nobis, PLLC, lawyer for Ecuadorians in U.S.

Rob Collier, Corporate Campaigns Director, Amazon Watch

Rally, February 10th, Friday, Noon, Organization of American States, Constitution Avenue & 17th St., NW, Washington D.C., (202) 458-3000



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Dead fish, health problems emerge as Chevron rig off Nigeria continues to burn after accident

The AP ran this horrific story yesterday about the devastating impact a Chevron natural gas rig fire is having on Nigerians. This is yet another example of Chevron's haphazard approach to oil exploration: Ecuador, Brazil and now Nigeria.  The entire story is below.  

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, February 6, 6:27 AM

LAGOS, Nigeria — The burning inferno of what used to be a Chevron Corp. natural gas rig still stains the night’s sky orange more than two weeks after the rig caught fire, and no one can say when it will end as swarms of dead fish surface.

The environmental damage is hitting a region whose poor still rely on the delta’s muddy waters for survival. A nearby clinic remains overrun with patients who are showing up with skin irritations and gastrointestinal problems.

“The community here has no other source of water apart from the river water, which on its own isn’t even safe enough to drink, but the pollution has made the water even worse,” said Dr. Oladipo Folorunso, the only doctor in the town of Ikebiri.

Folorunso attributes the illnesses to the burning rig, as rising temperatures in water can cause bacteria to thrive. A satellite image showed that the fire at a point was at least 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 730 degrees Celsius), “hot enough to soften steel,” an independent watchdog group called SkyTruth said.

The fire began Jan. 16 from a shallow-water gas well for Chevron’s Nigerian subsidiary near its North Apoi oil platform. The accident killed two foreign workers and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.

Chevron says it continues to investigate what started the fire but is not offering any estimate on how long it will burn.

Nigeria’s government believes a “gas kick” — a major buildup of gas pressure from drilling — was responsible, said Levi Ajuonoma, a spokesman for the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

In Koluama 1, a community less than six miles (10 kilometers) from the fire, the traditional ruler says Chevron and the federal government are not doing enough to address the problem.

“We need the federal government to come in,” Jeremiah T. C. Leghemo said. “These relief materials are provided by Chevron because the state government prevailed on Chevron to provide them, but the people are suffering.”

Chevron said last week that it was moving “food and supplies to the communities in the area to recognize the help and support that they have given us.”

A report by local watchdog Environmental Rights Action said the area — home to tens of thousands of people — received 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of cassava flour, one cow, vegetable oil, palm and groundnut oil, cartons of tomatoes and canned drinks.

The federal government is still putting together help for the community, said Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency. He could not immediately say what the materials would include.

It also remains unclear when the fire will be put out. Chevron, based in San Ramon, California, has said that it would take 30 days to drill to total depth of 9,000 feet (2,740 meters) to create a relief well that would help put out the fire.

The company on Thursday said it had finished its drilling plans. When pressed to say how long it would take to extinguish the fire, the company declined to comment.

“We cannot predict how long the process will take, but what we can tell you is we will do so as quickly as possible while continuing to maintain safe operations,” the company said in a statement.

Critics say the situation around the burning rig is symptomatic of how the government that enjoys billions from oil sales fails to protect its people.

Foreign firms have pumped oil for more than 50 years out of the delta, a region of swamps, mangroves and creeks roughly the same size as South Carolina. Many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, education or work.

Nigerian regulators often fall back on international standards set by engineering and trade groups as a yardstick for safety measures, but the country’s institutionalized graft and mismanagement means oil companies largely answer only to themselves in safety matters.


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Either You Did Or You Didn't

Fess Up Chevron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Diego Borja: On the Chevron Dole

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

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

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

Baker writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why was Hansen communicating with Chevron’s private eyes?

The plot thickens. More is sure to follow.

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


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Chevron’s Deceit Exposed In “Legal Misapprehension” Ruling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Gibson Dunn: Litigation Disaster of the Year Award

Can We Get A Re-Count?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ouch, Randy.

And, there's more:

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

Double ouch.

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

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

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

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

Read the judgment here.

Randy Mastro

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In Critical Ruling, Chevron Hit Hard By Federal Appellate Court

Judge Kaplan Ordered To Dismiss Chevron Case Against Ecuador

Amazon Defense Coalition, 26 January 2012, Contact: Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109, karen@hintoncommunications.com

U.S. representatives for the Ecuadorians, who recently won an $18 billion judgment in Ecuador against Chevron for massive contamination, issued the following statements today about the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, dismissing a lower court ruling that sought to prevent enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.

Karen Hinton, U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians, said:

"A grave injustice against the Ecuadorians has been set right by today's 2nd Circuit ruling. It rebukes Chevron's abusive legal tactics of the past two years designed solely to malign the very people who suffer as a result of the company's deliberate poisoning of their homeland, the Ecuadorian rainforest. Once Ecuadorian law allows enforcement of the judgment, it will become even more evident that the only fraud committed in Ecuador in the context of this historic environmental litigation was Chevron's. Chevron's fraud includes the deliberate use of substandard operational practices all designed to further inflate company profits at the expense of human life, the manipulation of scientific evidence during the trial and the launching of a smear campaign to distract attention from its own misconduct."

Craig Smyser of Smyser Kaplan & Veselka in Houston, an attorney for the Ecuadorians, said:

"The Ecuadorian inhabitants of the Amazon river basin today scored a remarkable victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That court rejected Chevron’s efforts to declare the Ecuadorian judgment invalid and unenforceable and instead ordered the New York trial court to dismiss Chevron’s claim for injunctive and declarative relief in its entirety. For 18 years, the Ecuadorians have sought vindication for Chevron’s pollution of their land, rivers, and lives with toxic wastes as a result of Chevron’s substandard drilling practices that would not have been permitted in the United States.


“Instead of confronting its environmental despoliation, Chevron has engaged in an international smear campaign of lawyer- and court-bashing. As a result of the 2nd Circuit’s opinion today and the confirmation of the Ecuadorian trial court’s judgment by the Ecuadorian appellate court, the wheels of the law are bringing Chevron to justice. This decision vindicates the application of international law and comity to these proceedings in New York.”

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

Oil Giant's Unclean Hands Soil Its Image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Chevron's 500 Lawyers At 39 Law Firms Defeated For Third Time

Five Impoverished Indigenous Groups One Step Closer To Justice

How many lawyers does it take to lose four court decisions in a row?

According to a Chevron declaration -- almost 500 lawyers and paralegals at 39 firms. See here.

Chevron's public face for its unprecedented legal attack against the impoverished Ecuadorians has been Gibson Dunn's Randy Mastro, a former political hack to tough guy Rudy Guiliani, a former NYC Mayor and onetime presidential candidate.

See here and here for more information.

Early on in the fight, Mastro got lucky when another fellow New Yorker, federal judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in Chevron's favor in its effort to block the $18 billion judgment out of Ecuador.

(The $18 billion is to cleanup the company's massive contamination of the rainforest, provide health care and deliver clean drinking water to the area.)

Kaplan and Mastro competed in court to see who could out-disparage and out-ridicule the indigenous groups. Read here about the disturbing comments Kaplan made from the bench about the Ecuadorians.

Mastro's luck ran out, though, when he appeared before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in September. The judges literally laughed at Mastro's argument that a U.S. court could sit in judgment of Ecuador's court system. One business day later, the court threw out Chevron's case.

In January, after Ecuador's appellate court upheld the $18 billion judgment, Chevron went back to its favorite judge, but even Kaplan wouldn't touch the oil giant's desperate plea to stop the Ecuadorians from enforcing the judgment.

Seeking relief from what Chevron described as "imminent harm," Mastro tried again twice with the 2nd Circuit but failed -- denying the company's motion to block enforcement block the judgment and ending Chevron's 18-month odyssey in U.S. courts to derail the Ecuadorian trial. A trial it asked for and fought for ten years ago.

For more insights into Mastro’s “legal thuggery,” see this Huffington Post blog.

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