Saturday, August 04, 2018

Chevron Defeated in Ecuador High Court

The oil giant, Chevron, lost its final appeal of a $9.5 billion judgement against it for polluting the Amazon basin. {10.10.12}  Ecuador's Constitutional Court handed down a 151 page opinion in which it rejected all of Chevron's arguments, including being victimized by official fraud, to set aside the lower court verdict.  The case is a total victory for the indigenous people who brought the suit, represented by Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia. The final victory raises the number of jurists in Canada and Ecuador which have ruled against the company to 29.  The decision is the fourth rendered by Ecuadorian courts.  The case was originally filed in New York federal court in 1993, but was moved to Ecuador when the company submitted to jurisdiction there.

In 2014 a federal judge of the prestigious Southern District of New York, Luis Kaplan, ruled the original verdict against Chevron was obtained fraudulently.  Kaplan relied on false testimony from an admittedly corrupt Chevron witness, refused to impanel a jury to try the facts, and refused to admit any evidence of Chevron's massive environmental contamination. Chevron's witness was Alberto Guerra, a former Ecuadorian judge who admitted taking bribes.  He was moved to the US by Chevron, and later admitted he lied on the stand after being coached for fifty-three days by Chevron lawyers.

Ecuador's trial court that rendered the initial verdict in 2011 relied on 105 technical reports finding that Texaco, now Chevron, poisoned a 1500 square mile area of the Amazon rain forest with carcinogenic oil wastes. {10.10.12} Thousands of people who live in the forest have suffered a catastrophic health and humanitarian crisis. Health care is nearly non-existent, so many Indians have died of cancer without treatment.  The problem now is how to force the multinational giant to pay the judgment.  It has vowed to never pay the $12 billion it owes, which includes interest, and subject the winners to a "lifetime of litigation". That attitude typifies an industry that deliberately polluted an entire region through operational decisions intended to save money and enrich executives, not to mention its waging a two-decade legal battle intended to exhaust its legal opponents.  It is the same arrogant disregard and contempt for the rights of Nature that brought you the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The reach and breath of Chevron power to manipulate the judicial system is rankly revealed by personal cost to a US attorney involved in the case, Steven Donziger. His license to practice law was summarily suspended July 18th.  Attorneys at the New York state disciplinary committee called Donziger an “immediate threat to the public order” despite his distinguished public service practice without a client grievance for twenty-five years. Rex Weyler, a co-founder of Greenpeace and friend of Donziger, called Donziger a “hero” for standing up to Chevron. “This is always the way the status quo power structure protects its own,” Weyler says. “The more frightened they are by the truth, the greater their lies.  US Person can certainly testify to the truth of that statement.