We Knew It Would Come To This

First, Chevron said there was no contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Then, Chevron said no one had been harmed by the contamination. Now, Chevron says the plaintiffs in the lawsuit don’t exist, and it’s all a figment of our imagination. Read Kate Sheppard’s piece from Mother Jones:

Amazon Plaintiffs to Chevron: We're Real!

— By Kate
Fri Jan. 28, 2011 12:07 PM PST


— Photos of re-signing event in Lago Agrio courtesy of the Amazon Defense Coalition.

The long legal case against Chevron over environmental damage wrought by drilling operations in the Amazon may finally be drawing to a close, as the parties in the case this month began filing their final arguments. But Chevron has made several attempts to get the case thrown out entirely--including making claims that the plaintiffs in the case don't actually exist.

Last month, Chevron made accusations of an "elaborate forgery of plaintiffs' signatures" in the suit. When the complaint was first filed in 2003, 48 indigenous residents of Lago Agrio, Ecuador, affected by the legacy of toxic pollution left behind by Texaco (a company Chevron later acquired) signed on as plaintiffs. Chevron claims that its forensics expert has determined that 20 of those signature were forged, and that therefore the lawyers representing them in the case did not truly have consent.

Chevron vice president and general counsel R. Hewitt Pate almost sounded like an activist in Chevron's press release last month, pledging to "seek full redress against the harm that has been done in the name of the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and to hold accountable all of those who have knowingly participated in this unlawful scheme." The irony, of course, is that the plaintiffs are seeking compensation for what they have described as massive environmental and human health harm caused by decades of oil extraction in the region that was never fully remediated.

Chevron says this is evidence that the suit has been "tainted with corruption from the very beginning and must be terminated." The company's lawyers filed a motion in the provincial court asking the judge to therefore declare the lawsuit "null and void."

In response, 24 of the plaintiffs involved in the case held an event this week to re-sign the documents, a symbolic effort to show that they are, in fact, real and they do have very real complaints against Chevron, namely the billions of gallons of toxic waste that they say was dumped in their Amazon communities. (The total number of plaintiffs is now down to 47; one has died since the suit was originally filed.) The lawyers for the plaintiffs say the forgery claims show that Chevron is getting "desperate" in these last-ditch efforts to get the case thrown out, rather than challenging the question at stake in the suit—whether the oil giant is indeed responsible for the alleged damage caused by its subsidiary.

"It's part of their fantasy of saying that this lawsuit doesn't really exist," Karen Hinton, spokesman for the plaintiffs, tells Mother Jones. "The only way to maneuver now is to discredit the court, the lawsuit itself, the plaintiffs and the lawyers—anyone associated with this—through various personal vilification campaigns."

The company has also sought footage from a documentary filmmaker that they believe will show misdeeds on the part of the plaintiffs.

The Ecuadorian court is supposed to rule on the case sometime before May, though it's likely that it will remain tied up in this legal wrangling for some time. If the forgeries claim is any indication, Chevron will throw every obstacle it can think of in the way of a final decision.

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Chevron, Trying to Fight Ecuador Lawsuit, Now Claiming Plaintiffs Don't Really Exist

Event In Amazon Jungle Puts Lie to Oil Giant's Latest Desperate Tactic


Amazon Defense Coalition
28 January 2011 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109
Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Lago Agrio, Ecuador – Several indigenous plaintiffs in the historic environmental lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador came together this week at one of the oil giant's polluted well sites in the Amazon rainforest to once again "prove" they are real in light of Chevron's latest legal motion claiming they don't really exist.

Chevron's legal team in Ecuador, which has been sanctioned recently for filing frivolous motions to delay the trial, had asked the court in December to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that one of its paid American "experts" determined that the signatures of 20 of the 48 named plaintiffs had been forged by their attorneys. The case has been on trial in Ecuador since 2003 and is nearing a final judgment, with the top end of damages estimated at $113 billion.

Chevron is accused of deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon from 1964 to 1990, when it operated a huge oil concession. The disaster is considered by some experts to be the worst oil-related environmental problem in the world today, with an area the size of Rhode Island laden with toxins.

Chevron's lawyers had claimed that there were discrepancies between some of the signatures on the lawsuit filed in 2003 and the same signatures attached to national identity cards in Ecuador. In disputing the allegation, the plaintiffs had accused Chevron of engaging in "desperate" tactics to derail a lawsuit it is losing based on the scientific evidence.

Pablo Fajardo, the lead attorney in Ecuador, said any discrepancies resulted from the fact the indigenous plaintiffs rarely sign their names to documents and thus any two signatures from the same person usually look slightly different. Chevron's American expert, Gus Lesovich, clearly had no understanding of this critical issue when he reached his flawed conclusions, said Fajardo.

Thirteen of the individual plaintiffs who were accused of having their signatures forged appeared this week before a notary to affirm that it was in fact their signatures on the lawsuit against Chevron. Each of the individuals stated that their signatures were their own.



“I find it humiliating that Chevron has said that the signatures are not genuine, and so I am here in person to sign with my own handwriting, yet again, and thus affirm the contamination that they have caused,” stated Hugo Camacho, President of the Pimanpiro community in the province of Orellana.

“It is not enough for [Chevron] to have killed our people, killed our rivers and our air, but now they are treating us like common criminals, like forgers. This is an outrageous indignity,” added Camacho.

Victor Tanguila, one of plaintiffs signing his support for a lawsuit against Chevron

“Chevron had promised that its expert analysis ‘proved’ that the signatures were false,” said Karen Hinton, spokeswoman for the plaintiffs. “But we now know that the only thing that has been ‘made clear’ is Chevron’s willingness to hire and pay any expert to make inaccurate claims to derail a lawsuit where it faces an enormous liability."

The latest expert report by Lesovich is just one of many improper allegations put forth by the company as the 17-year litigation has entered its final stages.

Examples of Chevron’s improper tactics in the litigation include putting out fake news reports that appear independent, trying to pay a journalist to spy on the plaintiffs, setting up dummy corporations in Ecuador to hide the company's role in testing soil samples, and mounting a sting operation to entrap an Ecuadorian judge presiding over the case. The company has also bombarded the Ecuador court with frivolous motions, leading to sanctions against its legal team.

The plaintiffs recently filed the first part of their final argument finding that "there is irrefutable evidence of contamination" at every one of Chevron's 45 former well and oil production sites inspected by the parties during the trial. The chemicals and compounds found -- all of which are toxic and some of which are known carcinogens -- include barium, benzene, cadmium, chromium, copper, etheylbenzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, vanadium, xylene, and zinc.

"The evidence makes it clear and unmistakable that Chevron is guilty," the summary of the alegato concludes. "Guilty of polluting the rainforest with toxic sludge from lucrative oil drilling operations, guilty of a shoddy and haphazard cleanup operation, guilty of letting toxic waste continue to devastate the rainforest and its inhabitants' lives, and perhaps worst of all, guilty of trying to cover it all up by destroying documents and making false accusations of fraud before courts in the U.S. and Ecuador."

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Chevron Lies in Failed Attempt to Silence Critics

Shareholder Nonprofit Finds Oil Giant Refused to Seat Attendees at Shareholder Meeting with Legitimate Proxies

If you are thinking about criticizing Chevron about its oil drilling practices, go hire a lawyer now. Dozens of American citizens have had to lawyer up during the past year because of Chevron executives’ Putinesque refusal to suffer any criticism whatsoever. Sheila McNulty, who covers the oil industry for the Financial Times out of Houston, reported this week that an inquiry by the United States Proxy Exchange found Chevron inappropriately refused a number of people with legitimate proxies to attend its last shareholder meeting, including four people who were arrested after Chevron called the police. About 20 people had traveled from Ecuador, Nigeria, Burma and Angola to attend the meeting but were refused. The people arrested were American activists who have criticized Chevron in the past.

Arrests unlikely to curb Chevron shareholder meeting protests

January 24, 2011 12:48 pm by Sheila McNulty

At Chevron’s last shareholder meeting, five people were arrested. The company has for years now been having a hard time with protestors – particularly about a lawsuit about environmental damage allegedly left in Ecuador by one of the companies it acquired. And certainly the arrests of those who the company says were troublemakers at the meeting must have been a welcome turn of events for Chevron.

Yet it really has not worked out as Chevron might have hoped. There will likely be continued protests at its upcoming shareholder meeting.

Todd Ward of the prominent Houston law firm DeGuerin & Dickson took the defendants’ case without payment because he felt those arrested had been treated unfairly and it was the right thing to do.

The Harris County district attorney let one of the protestors go. The other four were offered deferred adjudication, whereby all charges would be dropped if they did not protest at the next shareholder meeting. Only one accepted that. The other three refused.

Among them was Mitch Anderson, corporate campaigns director at Amazon Watch, which has been a thorn in Chevron’s side over Ecuador. He pled guilty, the court accepted the day he already had spent in jail upon being arrested as time served, and he is free to continue protesting.

Although he insists he was not guilty, Mr Anderson says he wanted the case behind him so he could get back to work:

I plan on being as vocal at the upcoming shareholder meeting as I was in the past. Chevron has failed to own up to its responsibility for environmental contamination in Ecuador. And with a court decision looming, this is too vital a time for us to be restricted from shedding light on the Ecuador environmental disaster.

Chevron does not believe it is responsible for whatever environmental damage remains in Ecuador.

Mr Anderson considers the arrests part of that publicity battle and, in his words, pure harrassment. He claims he had a valid proxy – the same document he has used to attend past meetings. In all, the protestors say some 19 people were told their proxies were invalid. Chevron said it could not confirm that.

But it does insist Mr Anderson’s proxy was invalid. And, besides, it insists it did not make the arrests or prosecute Mr Anderson and the others – the county did. The company only called the police to get the trespassers from blocking the path of shareholders. What happened next was out of its hands.

Nonetheless, Chevron said the protestors arrested were being disruptive. One had tried to lead shareholders in an anti-Chevron chant; others had sat in front of the exits, blocking the doors. And others had refused to move beyond the barricade to keep out those without valid proxies. This was interfering with the ability of those who were there to listen to participate in the meeting:

We do not condone behavior which could compromise the safety and security of our employees and stockholders. The Harris County District Attorney’s office has prosecuted four individuals for their actions at Chevron’s Annual Stockholders’ Meeting. We are confident that this matter is being handled appropriately by the District Attorney’s office, and we will continue to cooperate with them until it is resolved.

Yet, regardless of how all five cases are finally resolved by the courts, Glyn A Holton, executive director of the United States Proxy Exchange (USPX), a non-profit dedicated to facilitating shareowner rights, is disappointed in the whole affair.

Following the shareholders’ meeting, he said, volunteers of the USPX obtained and reviewed a number of sets of proxy credentials presented for admission. Some of these were presented by individuals who were admitted. Others were presented by individuals who were denied admission. The latter included the credentials of four of the individuals who were denied admission and were arrested:

All credentials we reviewed were legitimate and should have been sufficient to gain admission to the meeting. As far as we can determine, Chevron enforced no consistent standard for admitting or not admitting individuals based on their credentials. Admission decisions appear to have been made either arbitrary or based on criteria unrelated to the credentials presented. We found instances where two people presented identical credentials; one was admitted, and the other was not.

He gave some examples, including this one:

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate beneficially own 7,628 shares of Chevron stock in an account with Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company. Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company executed a legal proxy appointing the “Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (beneficial owners) Represented by Henry Clark” proxy for those shares, “with full power of substitution”. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate combined this with their own legal proxy also naming a Henry Clark to represent them at the annual meeting. Clark presented them at the annual meeting and was denied admission. His credentials were among the strongest we reviewed.

Chevron did not address the individual examples cited by Mr Holton. It only said:

We stand by the protocols we have established related to our Annual Meeting. Chevron is transparent about the legal requirements needed to gain entry to the meeting and consistent in our enforcement of those requirements.

A trial might have been good to settle the issue once and for all. Without it, it seems, Chevron may have won the battle, with the guilty pleas, but it may well still lose the war of public opinion. For just one of those arrested must stick to the sidelines during the upcoming shareholders meeting. And, with the Ecuador situation still unresolved, something tells me this meeting will be just as aggressive – if not more so – than the last.

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Evidence Shatters Chevron's Defense in World's Largest Oil Contamination Case

Enviro Bloggers Focus Attention on Oil Giant’s Misconduct

The Ecuadorians suing Chevron for the world’s largest oil contamination disaster have submitted the first part of their final written argument to the Ecuador court, outlining the evidence that clearly demonstrates Chevron's liability in the $113 billion environmental damages lawsuit and the fraud behind the company's primary defense of remediation.

The court filing -- called an "alegato" in Ecuador -- details in exacting detail how evidence gathered by independent experts, the plaintiffs, and from Chevron itself proves the case against the oil company. Read the summary and press release about the argument. The lawsuit was first filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 but was shifted to Ecuador at Chevron's request. The plaintiffs are tens of thousands of persons who live in area of Ecuador where Chevron operated several large oil fields from 1964 to 1990, reaping excess profits by using substandard practices.

Meanwhile, several environmental bloggers are shedding some much-needed light on the oil giant’s misconduct. Read the Huffington Post blog Huffington Post blog, Mother Jones, the WonkRoom and ChevroninEcuador.

Joanna Zelman of the Huffington Post wrote:

“Could there be enough "overwhelming" evidence against Chevron to merit a payment of over $100 billion? Tens of thousands of Ecuador's residents are the plaintiff in an environmental damages lawsuit against Chevron, and they believe the evidence speaks loud and clear….”

Responding to Chevron’s efforts to distract attention away from the contamination with accusations of corruption against the Ecuadorian court, Han Shan of ChevroninEcuador wrote:

“But here we are with the final arguments, and the judge deliberating on a decision that is widely expected to be delivered this year. The plaintiffs have brought on DC mega law firm Patton Boggs and high-profile lawyer James Tyrrell, who vows that the plaintiffs will be able to enforce a judgment against Chevron and win major damages to be put to environmental cleanup and healthcare in their communities.”

Wonk Room's Brad Johnson headlined his blog with, "Chevron, Under Pressure For Destruction of Amazon, Was Top Lobbyist Last Quarter," He wrote: "Chevron, responsible for a multi-billion-dollar environmental disaster in Ecuador, is instead spending millions to shore up political support and to evade the clean up." Senate disclsoure forms reveal that oil giant Chevron spent $2.9 million lobbying the federal government last quarter, eclipsing even Exxon ($2.6 million) and BP ($2.2 million)."

Chevron has long argued, as its primary defense at trial, that a "remediation" conducted between 1995-98 released it from any responsibility. Despite Chevron’s claims, a summary of the plaintiff’s alegato concludes the legal release used by Chevron as a result of that remediation is "null and void" because it was based on numerous false and misleading representations by the company. Instead of actually cleaning up the waste in the area, the limited “remediation” was largely accomplished by simply covering a small number of waste pits with dirt and then using an inappropriate laboratory test that counted only a fraction of the actual contamination to “prove” that the remediation had been effective.

"The evidence makes it clear and unmistakable that Chevron is guilty," the summary of the alegato concludes. "Guilty of polluting the rainforest with toxic sludge from lucrative oil drilling operations, guilty of a shoddy and haphazard cleanup operation, guilty of letting toxic waste continue to devastate the rainforest and its inhabitants' lives, and perhaps worst of all, guilty of trying to cover it all up by destroying documents and making false accusations of fraud before courts in the U.S. and Ecuador."

The document concludes that Chevron is responsible for ongoing contamination that is harming the environment and human health to this day, even though the company fled Ecuador in the early 1990s and stripped its assets out of the country. The main arguments are as follows:

• Chevron treated the environment "recklessly" and deliberately disposed of billions of gallons of toxic waste into rivers and streams over the 26-year period that it operated a large oil concession in Ecuador's Amazon region. "These lax operational practices have had a devastating impact on the rainforest ecosystem and its inhabitants," according to the document.


• Chevron dumped more than 16 billion gallons of chemical-laden "produced water" into streams and rivers over 70 years after the industry had stopped the practice in the United States due to its damaging environmental impacts.


• Chevron built and then abandoned more than 900 toxic waste pits filled with oil drilling byproducts such as barium, heavy metals, chloride, and acid -- all of which need extensive remediation.


• Chevron polluted the air by flaring gas with no controls, spilled thousands of barrels of oil, had no spill response plan, and ordered the destruction of records documenting oil spills.

The plaintiff’s "alegato" also found that "there is irrefutable evidence of contamination" at every one of Chevron's 45 well and oil production sites inspected by the parties during the trial phase of the case in the affected area, which is 1,500 square miles in size and covers a swath of rainforest roughly the size of Rhode Island. The chemicals and compounds found -- all of which are toxic and some of which are known carcinogens -- include barium, benzene, cadmium, chromium, copper, etheylbenzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, vanadium, xylene, and zinc.

The alegato also explains how it is Chevron -- not PetroEcuador -- that is responsible for the contamination given that the vast majority of pollution occurred at the time Chevron's 356 well sites were drilled and operated by the American company. The legal concept of "joint and several liability" also imposes on Chevron responsibility for 100% of the damage it caused because of the substandard system it built and operated.

The submission is the first of three parts. The second and third parts -- which deal with damages and issues relating to due process -- will be released in the coming days. Earlier damages assessment reports submitted by the plaintiffs found the company could be liable for up to $113 billion in costs.

Chevron submitted its alegato to the Ecuador court in early January.

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Chevron Operatives Ordered to Testify About Falsifying Evidence In Ecuador

Chevron Operatives Leave California After Being Called to Testify About Falsifying Evidence in Ecuador Environmental Trial

Diego Borja, Sarah Portilla, & Wayne Hansen Fighting Subpoenas Issued by U.S. Courts

Amazon Defense Coalition
6 January 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

San Francisco, CA – Chevron's self-described "clandestine" operations agent Diego Borja, his wife Sarah Portilla, and collaborator Wayne Hansen have left California after two U.S. Federal Courts authorized subpoenas to be served upon them related to charges that they tried to corrupt the environmental trial in Ecuador where Chevron faces a potential $113 billion liability, according to representatives for Ecuadorian rainforest residents suing the company.

Diego Borja, who has emerged as a key figure on Chevron's Ecuador legal team for engaging in "dirty tricks" to undermine the 18-year litigation, has apparently vacated the luxury California home that Chevron had rented for him and Portilla since June 2009. Neighbors have said that Borja and Portilla moved to an undisclosed location in Texas.

Borja became a person of interest in the lawsuit after he was recorded last year bragging about his role in "cook(ing) evidence" for Chevron to hide illegal levels of toxic contamination and presiding over various "dirty tricks" to help the oil giant escape liability, including a video sting operation against a judge. He was moved from Ecuador, where he is under official investigation, to California at Chevron's expense and paid a monthly salary.

Borja's sudden disappearance from California was discovered when lawyers for the indigenous plaintiffs attempted to serve subpoenas on him and Portilla commanding them to testify about their roles in falsifying evidence. Portilla, who is Ecuadorian, also worked for Chevron in the Ecuador trial as part of the evidence-handling team and in setting up dummy corporations, according to legal papers.

The timing of Borja and Portilla's move is particularly suspicious given that Borja's colleague, Wayne Hansen, apparently has disappeared from his residence in Bakersfield, California. Hansen was Borja's partner in a failed "sting" operation in which they secretly recorded misleading interviews with the Ecuadorian judge formerly overseeing the environmental case.

In August 2009, Chevron released the videotapes to the news media and accused the judge of being involved in a bribery plot, even though the judge did not attend the meeting where Borja and Hansen offered a bribe and there was no evidence that the judge engaged in misconduct. The plaintiffs charged the tapes were part of a Nixon-style dirty tricks operation likely orchestrated by Chevron's lawyers in Ecuador and the United States.

Before Borja could be interviewed by Ecuadorian authorities investigating the bribery allegations, Chevron paid for his relocation to California and is now paying the fees of a high-profile San Francisco attorney to represent him. His attorney, Chris Arguedes, has blocked all efforts to interview Borja about his work for Chevron.

"We believe Chevron needs to explain whether it is actively assisting Borja and Hansen to evade the authority of the federal courts in California," said Karen Hinton, spokesperson for the Ecuadorians suing Chevron.

"Borja, Portilla, and Hansen have apparently tried to corrupt and sabotage the Ecuadorian trial by cooking false evidence to favor Chevron," she added. "It is critical that all information related to their unlawful activities in Ecuador, including any assistance provided them by Chevron employees and lawyers, be disclosed immediately before a judgment is rendered in the Ecuador court."

Since 2007, the plaintiffs have accused Chevron of evidence tampering in the trial. Borja confirmed the plaintiffs' charges when in taped conversations he admitted the company had "cooked" evidence.

The tapes were made by Santiago Escobar, a childhood friend of Borja's who lives in Canada. They have been turned over to authorities in Ecuador and the United States.

In legal briefs filed with the Northern District Court of California, the plaintiffs repeated Borja's statements that he collected soil samples at contaminated sites and, with Portilla's assistance, replaced contaminated samples with clean ones. Then the two, as employees of an "independent" lab, submitted them to the court as evidence.

"Borja has admitted to engaging in what he has described as a 'dirty tricks' operation, involving those soil samples, to support Chevron's litigation strategy," reads the plaintiffs' brief.

"In short, Chevron has gone to extraordinary lengths and employed the full force of its vast resources to frustrate the Ecuadorian plaintiffs' efforts to obtain a fair trial," the brief continues.

Escobar had told journalists that Borja indicated to him that he has carried out a series of clandestine operations on behalf of Chevron's trial team in Ecuador over a series of years. In June 2009, Escobar said Borja told him he arranged "the biggest business deal of his life" that would "take down the lawsuit" and that he had received a "ton of money" from Chevron for his work. He also said that if the plaintiffs knew what he knew about Chevron's corruption, they would win the trial in an instant.

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Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned Four Times in Eco-Disaster Case

For the fourth time, Chevron has been sanctioned for improper conduct in both U.S. and Ecuadorian courts. The sanctioned behavior ranges from attempting to overwhelm the Ecuadorian court by filing in a short time frame over a hundred motions -- some of which had been filed and ruled upon already -- to asking abusive questions of one of the plaintiffs' experts in an effort to intimidate him.

Andrea E. Neuman

Questioning by Gibson Dunn Attorney Andrea Neuman Found to Violate Colorado Bar Rule

Denver, Colorado (November 19, 2010) – A U.S. federal court has sanctioned Chevron and its lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for abusive questioning during a deposition related to the oil giant’s multi-billion dollar liability in Ecuador for environmental contamination, according to court papers made available today.

The questioning that led to the sanctions was conducted by Andrea Neuman, one of Chevron’s lead lawyers on the Ecuador matter and a partner at Gibson Dunn’s office in Irvine, CA. Neuman is the fourth Chevron lawyer to be sanctioned recently in the Ecuador matter.

Separately, two Chevron employees are under criminal indictment in the South American nation for lying about the results of a purported environmental remediation that Chevron is using as a defense to the civil lawsuit over the contamination, which affects an area the size of Rhode Island.

Dozens of indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador are suing the oil giant for deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into Ecuador’s Amazon region when it operated a large oil concession from 1964 to 1990.

The contamination – which includes more than 900 abandoned toxic waste pits -- has plunged the region into a public health crisis that threatens thousands of people with cancer and other oil-related diseases, according to evidence before the court.

In the brief seeking the sanctions, the Amazon communities accused Neuman of using “blatant intimidation tactics” that “fall below the standards of professional conduct” required by Colorado and Federal rules in Colorado. The questioning occurred when Neuman deposed an American technical expert for the plaintiffs on Oct. 6 in Denver.

In a decision dated November 15, Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty ordered Neuman and her colleagues at Gibson Dunn to refrain from asking questions in depositions involving the witnesses’ knowledge of criminal law statutes. Gibson Dunn is trying to characterize the expert work in Ecuador as fraudulent, a charge the Amazonian communities reject.

“This court in Colorado was willing to stand up to Gibson Dunn’s bullying and abusive tactics,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Ecuador trial. “Chevron is using these tactics as part of its campaign to cover up its own fraud and wrongdoing in Ecuador.”

Just days ago a trial judge in Ecuador increased the fine for two Chevron lawyers found to be obstructing the trial. Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea, both of whom have worked on Chevron's legal team in Ecuador since the trial against Chevron began in 2003, were fined approximately $1,600 by Judge Nicolas Zambrano for repeatedly filing the same motions to delay the seven-year case.

In 2009, a third Chevron lawyer in Ecuador – Patricio Campuzano -- was sanctioned for the same reason. On August 5 – one day after the Ecuador court ordered both parties to submit their own damages assessments – Chevron filed 19 motions to nullify the order or the trial itself in a 30-minute period. Racines and Larrea then cited the failure of the trial judge to quickly rule on each of the motions as a basis to recuse him.

Just last week, Chevron’s Ecuador lawyers filed a long affidavit in court from a U.S. technical expert that was signed in 2004, one year after the trial began in Ecuador. Chevron then asked the judge to appoint a translator though Chevron generally provides its own translations of documents. Chevron, which operated several oil fields in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, faces damages and clean-up costs of up to $113 billion.

The amount includes compensation for an estimated 10,000 potential deaths from cancer in the coming decades, according to reports submitted to the court by a team of prominent American technical experts. Chevron bought Texaco (which owned the Ecuador operation) in 2001 for $31 billion, apparently without adequately vetting the company for the Ecuador environmental liability, said Fajardo.

The lawsuit against Chevron, originally filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 but moved to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request, accuses the oil giant of poisoning an area of rainforest that is home to five indigenous groups and thousands of farmers. The two Chevron employees under indictment in Ecuador, Rodrigo Perez Pallares and Ricardo Reis Veiga, have a preliminary hearing on their case scheduled for January 5, 2011 in Quito. Both are accused of defrauding Ecuador’s government by signing false documents certifying a sham cleanup in the mid-1990s.

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Chevron Sting Operative Tries to Quash Subpoena and Avoid Testimony

It appears lawyers for Chevron operative Diego Borja are being very careful not to deny the shocking charges that Borja made about the oil giant's evidence tampering in the multi-billion oil contamination lawsuit filed by indigenous tribes in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Two federal judges recently ruled that Borja and his video-taping sidekick Wayne Hansen can be deposed for questioning about their role to undermine the lawsuit. A few days ago Borja's lawyers filed a motion to quash the subpoena. In legal briefs, Borja never denies the charges. Details below.

Diego Borja in U.S. Court over Charges He “Cooked Evidence” in Ecuador Lawsuit

Amazon Defense Coalition

10 November 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 – Self-described Chevron sting operative Diego Borja, scheduled to appear in court today in San Francisco, is conceding that the oil giant “cooked” evidence to defend itself against a multi-billion oil contamination lawsuit in the Ecuadorian rainforest, according to documents filed in court.

Borja’s lawyers today are scheduled to argue their motion to quash a subpoena requiring Borja to produce evidence relating to Chevron’s operations in Ecuador, where he said he ran a “dirty tricks” operation for the oil giant. Borja has emerged as a key figure in the Ecuador lawsuit – where Chevron faces damages of up to $113 billion -- after he was caught on tape saying the oil giant “cooked evidence” to produce lower levels of toxic contaminants.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have long charged that Chevron is violating the law in Ecuador by trying to undermine the trial, which is in the South American nation at Chevron’s request after it was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993.

The vast majority of the voluminous scientific evidence in the trial points to Chevron’s culpability for massive oil contamination throughout an area the size of Rhode Island. The contamination is producing high rates of cancer and other oil-related diseases and has decimated indigenous groups, according to evidence before the court.

Chevron has repeatedly announced it expects to lose the case, and instead has attempted to persuade its shareholders that it can avoid enforcement of the judgment by claiming that the the court and the Ecuadoran legal system are not legitimate.

In papers filed with the federal district court in San Francisco, Borja’s lawyers do not deny that he made the claims the oil giant “cooked evidence”. Instead, they argue the statements are not relevant to the international arbitration claim between Chevron and the government of Ecuador, which is the legal basis for the subpeona.

U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen earlier had ordered Borja to appear for a deposition, writing that there is evidence “suggesting that Mr. Borja was not an innocent third party … but rather was a long-time associate of Chevron whom Chevron would pay for any favorable testimony."

Borja was caught on tape last year telling a friend that Chevron had “cooked evidence” and that he had incriminating information that if known would cause Chevron to lose the lawsuit. Borja threatened to reveal the incriminating evidence if the company did not pay him for videotapes he secretly recorded with an accomplice that attempted to discredit the Ecuadorian judge presiding over the case.

In August 2009, Chevron released the videotapes to the news media and accused the judge of bribery, even though the judge did not attend the meeting where Borja and Hansen offered a bribe and there was no evidence that the judge engaged in misconduct. The plaintiffs charged the tapes were part of a Nixon-style dirty tricks operation launched by

Chevron’s lawyers.

Chevron later relocated Borja and his family to the United States at the company’s expense, where he remains on Chevron’s payroll while living in a luxury house in a gated community. Chevron is paying the fees of his lawyers.

Hansen, who is a convicted drug trafficker who served time in prison, also has been ordered to appear for a deposition but appears to have fled California and has not been served papers, according to sources.

For more information about Borja and Hansen’s sting operation, see http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/borja-report/.

The court documents supporting Borja’s subpoena demonstrate that:

· Chevron claimed in a press release that Borja was a “Good Samaritan,” when in fact he was working under the direction of Chevron’s legal team since at least 2004, and he himself said he was responsible for “dirty tricks” during the trial;

· Borja formed four dummy companies for Chevron to make the tests of soil and water samples that Chevron introduced as evidence in the litigation appear independent;

· Borja’s wife also worked for Chevron, and both he and his wife signed documents as representatives of Severn Trent Labs, a supposedly independent laboratory used to test soil and water samples from the litigation;

· Borja and his Chevron “boss” attempted to infiltrate a laboratory used by the plaintiffs using false names.

Among Borja’s quotes from the tapes cited in the legal papers is the following passage:

“… I have correspondence [with Chevron officials] that talks about things you can’t even imagine, dude… they’re things that can make the Amazons win this just like this [snapping fingers]… I mean, what I have is conclusive evidence, photos of how they managed things internally.”

The tapes of Borja, made by an Ecuadorian man named Santiago Escobar, have been turned over to authorities in Ecuador and the United States.

Escobar has said that Borja indicated to him that he carried out a series of clandestine “dirty tricks” operations for Chevron in Ecuador. Escobar said Borja told him he arranged “the biggest business deal of his life” that would “take down the lawsuit” and that he had received a “ton of money” from Chevron for his work.

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Chevron Dumped Toxic Formation Water Directly Into The Rainforest

From 1964 to 1990, Chevron dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic formation water directly into the rainforest instead of re-injecting it deep into the ground, the standard practice during this time in the United States and other countries. Without regard to the impact upon the environment and human health, Chevron designed this practice to save money. When Petroecuador took over the oil sites, the government-owned oil company began re-injecting all formation water, and today that practice continues. The press release below features a former Chevron oilfield worker who describes how the oil giant contaminated the drinking water and soil.

Video: Chevron Oilfield Worker Describes Toxic Dumping in Ecuador

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador (Nov. 8, 2010) – A former Chevron oilfield worker has described in graphic detail how the company ordered its employees to systematically dump toxic waste into the waterways of the Amazon rainforest, according to representatives of the communities suing the oil giant.

In a video posted on the at website of the environmental group Amazon Watch, a former Chevron oilfield worker Jhinsop Martinez Erraez offers an eyewitness account of his employer’s criminal conduct. Erraez said the company conducted wholesale dumping of toxic waste products and industrial chemicals directly into the Ecuadorian rainforest from 1964 to 1990.

The revelations came in the second video posted by Amazon Watch that confirms Chevron’s oilfield misconduct in Ecuador, where the company faces a multi-billion dollar liability in a case brought by dozens of indigenous and farmer communities. The first video, also available here, documented how the company abandoned hundreds of waste pits that piped toxic waste into rivers and streams relied on by the local inhabitants for their drinking water.

Martinez had been an assistant for oil production operations at Dureno 1, one of the 378 well sites and oil production facilities built and operated by Texaco throughout an area of rainforest roughly the size of Rhode Island.

“The water was released contaminated with chemicals … the water dumped was yellow, totally contaminated because it was injected with two classes of chemicals, one to separate the water and another to separate the sediment” said Martinez. “The [oil] well was on a hill and drained down the mountainside and into a river.”

“And that was the routine we had twenty-four hours a day, taking care of that well,” Martinez said.

According to its own environmental audits, Chevron discharged at least 18 billion gallons of the “produced water” that Martinez describes in his interview. Produced water contains cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene, toluene, xylene and Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Martinez worked for Chevron in the late 1980s, shortly before its contract with Ecuador’s government expired in 1992 and the company left the country. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 and moved to Ecuador in 2002 after Chevron agreed to accept jurisdiction there and abide by any judgment.

The top end of Chevron’s damages is estimated to be as high as $113 billion, according to a report submitted by six prominent American technical experts.

While Chevron does not dispute that it dumped the “produced water” as Martinez said, the company has said on multiple occasions that the toxic waste was treated before discharge. This claim is sharply contradicted by Martinez.

“[Texaco] gave the orders for us to drain the water out into nature – the contaminated waters. It didn’t go anywhere to be treated or anything like that,” Martinez told Amazon Watch. “It went directly through a pipe and drained down the mountainside, nowhere else. And, well, there was nothing you could do.”

Martinez’s statements are significant because as early as the 1930s it was standard oil industry practice in the United States to re-inject “produced water” deep underground rather than discharge it directly into the environment, where it could contaminate fresh water sources. Some “produced water” is discharged in the U.S. today, but only under a strict permitting process to guarantee that it does not contaminate water sources.

According to Martinez, neither of these approaches were utilized at Dureno 1 even though Chevron owned the patent on the technology used for underground reinjection.

Evidence before the Ecuador court demonstrates that Chevron’s dumping at Dureno 1 was replicated at all of the company’s production sites in Ecuador, said Pablo Fajardo, the attorney for the plaintiffs.

“It is clear that Chevron is responsible for the destruction of an entire region’s environment on which thousands of people depend for their sustenance,” said Fajardo.

Several peer-reviewed health evaluations have found elevated rates of cancer in the area where Chevron operated. One American expert, formerly associated with the RAND Corporation, authored a report report, concluding that up to 10,000 people faced a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades because of the pollution.

“An entire generation has been forced to live with the reality of elevated risks of cancer, childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, and birth defects simply because Chevron didn’t want to spend the money to operate the way it would have in the United States,” said Fajardo.

Several experts believe the damage caused by Chevron in Ecuador dwarfs the harm generated by the BP Gulf spill, and is probably the world's largest oil-related disaster. The contamination will take at least a decade to remediate once funds are in place, according to experts.

A complete video of the Martinez interview, and associated transcripts is available here.

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How Big A Lie Will $8 Million Buy?

Han Shan of Amazon Watch answers the question of how big a lie $8 million will buy. He writes an interesting blog about a Chevron consultant who says the oil giant has never harmed the environment or human health in its oil exploration. Chevron has paid him at least $8 million, of which $5 million was for reports that said none of Chevron's contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest is harmful to humans and environment.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2010

John Connor: Chevron's Well-Paid Liar in Ecuador

Along with our campaign allies at RAN & the tricksters at The Yes Men, we've been having some fun exposing Chevron's widely-panned new 'We Agree' ad campaign for the insulting greenwash it is.

But now, I want to turn back to some serious matters in the ongoing legal battle to hold Chevron accountable for massive devastation in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest region.

The Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC) issued a press release a few weeks back that highlighted a legal judgment against Chevron in Mississippi this past Spring. A jury verdict says that Chevron must pay $19 million dollars to five plaintiffs who were exposed to leaded gasoline fumes from leaking underground gas tanks owned by the company. According to the Associated Press, the daughter of the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit was born "severely mentally disabled, and the children of the other women suffer from respiratory conditions and learning disabilities."

What does this have to do with Ecuador and the mothers and children there who say Chevron is poisoning them?

Well, it was Chevron’s lead American expert in the Ecuador case John Connor who also testified in this recent Mississippi case. The U.S. jury rejected Connor's testimony, and a reading of the court transcriptunveils some very damning information.

An excerpt from the ADC press release:

In the trial -- which took place in Jefferson County, Mississippi -- Connor conceded on cross-examination that over almost two decades of work for Chevron he has never once concluded that the impact of his client’s operations has harmed even a single person, according to the court documents. Connor testified that he knew of no circumstance where “there were any injuries of individuals that were the responsibility of Chevron or Texaco.”

Connor also tried to exonerate Chevron by testifying that any contamination must have been caused by leaks from three storage tanks owned by a smaller company in the area, not the larger tanks owned by Chevron. But when confronted on cross-examination by evidence that he had misidentified the site from a state database, Connor admitted that he had never taken any steps to definitively verify that the gas tanks actually existed on the smaller company’s property.

John Connor: "Chevron paid me well to tell you this oil poses no danger to anyone."

Connor's testimony in Mississippi is very similar to his under-oath spin in the Ecuador case, intended to shore up Chevron's ludicrous argument that Ecuador's state oil company Petroecuador is responsible for all of the oil contamination in the region. This, despite Chevron admitting that it dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into Amazon waterways depended upon by thousands of local people for drinking and bathing. This, despite the fact that Chevron (in the form of its subsidiary Texaco, of course) dug every one of the 900+ toxic waste pits that the company abandoned, many of which continue to leech poisons into the soil and ground water [see this video to understand exactly how that happens].

Under cross-examination in Mississippi, Connor also admits that Chevron has paid him "at least" $8 million over the years and estimates that $5 million of that has been for his work in Ecuador.

Ordering Chevron to pay $19 million in damages, a jury in Mississippi rejected his ludicrous and laughable testimony and concluded that this guy has no credibility. And I encourage you, dear reader, to read the transcript. Even on paper in a format as weird as a court transcript, he sounds evasive and slippery at best, and like he's simply lying through his teeth at other times.

Now, people who are following the monumental class action in Ecuador will know that Chevron has been in a legal frenzy over the last few months, filing legal actions against more than 20 people on the plaintiffs' side demanding 'discovery' ranging from turning over footage and files to sitting for depositions conducted by Chevron lawyers.

The plaintiffs, busy dealing with this legal onslaught by a company with nearly bottomless resources, have yet to be able to truly fight fire with fire and seek discovery from Chevron in the same way.

In September, a U.S. judge granted a request by the government of Ecuador to subpoena Chevron's self-avowed 'dirty tricks guy' Diego Borja. Borja, of course, was captured by a friend-turned-whistleblower talking about how the company "cooked evidence" in the trial in Ecuador, and suggesting that his "bosses" at the company were directing him.

Now, it's time for the plaintiffs to drop some subpoenas on some of these Chevron "bosses" so we can learn the truth about the dirty tricks and lies that Chevron has been employing to evade accountability for its devastation in Ecuador.

But the more I learn about Chevron's highly-paid and deceitful "expert" John Connor, I think he may be the perfect place to start.

– Han

Han Shan is the Coordinator of Amazon Watch's Clean Up Ecuador Campaign

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Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned and Fined for Obstructing Environmental Lawsuit in Ecuador

Last week Judge Nicolas Zambrano ruled that Chevron lawyers Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea tried to obstruct the multi-billion lawsuit the oil giant faces in Ecuador by repeatedly filling the same motions in an apparent effort to stall the case. Another Chevron lawyer Patricio Campuzano was sanctioned for the same reason in 2009. On August 5th, Chevron filled 19 motions to repeal the court’s order to submit new damages assessments and later argued the judge’s failure to rule quickly on those motions was a reason to recuse him. Given Chevron’s charges that previous damage assessments were fraudulent, one would think the company would welcome an opportunity to submit its own. Instead, facing a potential $113 billion liability, Chevron files a bunch of old motions already denied.

Three Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned For Obstructing Ecuador Environmental Trial

Facing $113 Billion in Potential Damages, Chevron Lawyers Seek Any Opportunity to Delay

Amazon Defense Coalition
29 October 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Lago Agrio, Ecuador (October 29, 2010) -- A trial court has sanctioned and fined three Chevron lawyers for obstructing the trial where Chevron faces a multi-billion dollar judgment for the deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste, according to court papers made available today.

Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea, both of whom have worked on Chevron’s legal team in Ecuador since the trial against Chevron began in 2003, were fined by Judge Nicolas Zambrano this week for repeatedly filing the same motions in an effort to delay the seven-year Ecuador trial.

The judge ruled that the lawyers had used Chevron’s motions “to obstruct the trial.” In 2009, a third Chevron lawyer – Patricio Campuzano – was sanctioned for the same reason.
On August 5 – one day after the court ordered both parties to submit their own damages assessments -- Chevron filed 19 motions to nullify the order or the trial itself in a 30-minute period. Racines and Larrea then cited the failure of the trial judge to quickly rule on each of the motions as a basis to recuse him.

“The evidence clearly shows Chevron used illegal practices that resulted in the massive destruction of the rainforest in Ecuador and the decimation of indigenous groups and other local residents,” said Pablo Fajardo, who represents dozens of indigenous and farmer communities suing the oil giant for dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest.

“To help Chevron evade its obligations, Chevron’s lawyers are trying to sabotage the Ecuadorian legal system in addition to violating their professional obligations,” he added.

Chevron, which operated several oil fields in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, faces damages and clean-up costs estimated at up to $113 billion. The amount includes compensation for an estimated 10,000 potential deaths from cancer in the coming decades, according to reports submitted by a team of prominent American technical experts.
Chevron is also accused of deliberately discharged highly toxic “water of formation” into the waterways of the forest that thousands of local residents depended on for their drinking water. The “water of formation” has a salt content ten times greater than ocean water.

Chevron bought Texaco (which owned the Ecuador operation) in 2001 for $31 billion, apparently without adequately vetting the company for the Ecuador environmental liability, said Fajardo.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 but moved to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron’s request, accuses the oil giant of poisoning an area of rainforest the size of Rhode Island that is home to five indigenous groups. More than 900 unlined toxic waste pits built and abandoned by Chevron are spread out through the rainforest where they continue to contaminate groundwater and soils, according to evidence submitted to the court.
Chevron has repeatedly tried to delay the trial by bombarding the court in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio with hundreds of repetitive motions, a practice that has intensified in recent months.

Two Chevron employees currently living in the United States, Ricardo Reis Veiga and Rodrigo Perez Pallares, are under indictment in Ecuador for lying about the results of purported remediation in the mid-1990s. Evidence gathered during the trial shows that toxic waste pits the company claimed to have remediated are contaminated with cancer-causing toxins, sometimes hundreds of times higher than U.S. and Ecuadorian norms designed to protect public health.

Chevron’s misconduct in Ecuador and its abuse of the legal process has drawn increasing criticism.

A prominent Ecuador Bishop, Gonzalez Lopez Maranon, blasted the oil giant for failing to accept responsibility for the “pollution and death” Texaco caused in the country. The full text of his letter in English and Spanish, which was sent to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, can be found here.

Rep. James McGovern, the only member of Congress to have visited the disaster area in Ecuador, previously had written a letter to President Obama saying Chevron’s pollution had created “a terrible humanitarian and environmental crisis.” Dozens of members of Congress also have protested Chevron’s attempts to lobby the Obama Administration to cancel Ecuador’s trade preferences as retaliation for the lawsuit.

Just last week, Chevron’s new $100 million advertising campaign was widely mocked by environmental groups and the Yes Men, who created a website called www.chevronthinkswerestupid.com.

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