Chevron Fights Like Mad to Block Release of Documents

Court Begins to Question Oil Giant's Double Standard When It Comes to Disclosure of Case Files

If you want an example of how a large oil company can mock court orders and get away with it, look no further than Chevron's behavior in the Ecuador environmental case where the company faces an $18 billion liability and allegations that it engaged in criminal misconduct to undermine a trial.See here and here.

The bottom line: due to a series of discovery decisions by a U.S. federal judge, who is clearly biased against the Ecuadorians, Chevron has almost the entire case file of the Ecuadorian's legal team while the Ecuadorians and their lawyers have almost none of Chevron's documents. There is simply no level playing field in the case.

Reporters covering the matter have completely missed the story of Chevron's gamesmanship before U.S. Judges. This gamesmanship makes it clear that Chevron will do anything to evade what is the largest court judgment in history for environmental damage. (See here)

One example vividly illustrates Chevron's maneuvering. For more than a year, the Ecuadorians have been fighting to obtain thousands of documents related to Diego Borja, the Chevron operative who secretly videotaped himself and his colleague Wayne Hansen offering a bribe to be given to the presiding judge in Ecuador as a way to sabotage the proceedings. Borja's own lawyer has admitted publicly that his client faces criminal liability in the U.S. and Ecuador for his actions. Borja has admitted Chevron has paid him vast sums of money -- including covering his U.S. income taxes -- for not working while living in the U.S. out of reach of journalists and investigative authorities.

When it comes to seeking Chevron's documents, the Ecuadorians have been met with nothing but obstructionism from Chevron's army of lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, King & Spalding, Jones Day, Boies Schiller & Flexner, and Arguedes Cassman & Headley. (Yes, you read that correctly -- Chevron has hired five of the most powerful corporate and criminal defense firms in America to defend its environmental dumping in Ecuador. The Gibson Dunn firm recently disclosed it has at least 75 lawyers working on the case, meaning it is probably is billing the oil giant well over $100 million annually to get it off the hook for human rights violations in Ecuador.)

Consider the radically different ways U.S. courts have treated Chevron's requests for discovery, as compared to those made by the Ecuadorians.

In federal court in New York, the battle was fast and furious for release of privileged documents belonging to the Ecuadorians when Chevron wanted them. Thanks to a "technicality" ginned up by federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who insulted the Ecuadorians from the bench by claiming their lawsuit was imaginary, Chevron collected practically every document and email written about the 18-year-old case from their longtime lawyer Steven Donziger.

Kaplan prevented Donziger from arguing why particular documents were protected by privilege. Instead, he ordered Donziger to truck over his entire stash of tens of thousands of emails and internal memos to Chevron's law offices on the grounds his privilege log was turned in “late”. In fact, his log was prepared by numerous lawyers working furiously for weeks to list each of his thousands of documents, and it was clearly prepared in a reasonable amount of time (about four weeks after Kaplan denied Donziger's motion to quash the subpoena).

Using Judge Kaplan as its ally, Chevron also obtained documents from case interns, other lawyers for the Ecuadorians, consultants, financial advisors, and financial supporters -- over 1 million documents in all, according to legal briefs.

Chevron's discovery orgy was abruptly shut down in September by the federal appeals court in New York, which stayed the underlying legal proceeding before Kaplan where Chevron was seeking an unprecedented (and probably illegal) worldwide injunction barring enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment. Without that case, Chevron lost the legal mechanism it was using to continue its U.S. discovery odyssey. Without the injunction, Chevron also now finds itself in a bigger jam now than when Kaplan was allowed to run wild on its behalf.

Interestingly, a few days before that appellate ruling staying Kaplan's proceeding, Chevron's double standard was revealed in a little-noticed decision by New York Magistrate Judge James Francis IV. Francis had this to say about Chevron's privilege logs (which lists Chevron's documents related to the litigation that the company is trying to prevent from being turned over to the Ecuadorians):

“(The review) reveals the categorization process engaged in by Chevron obscures rather than illuminates (emphasis added) the nature of the materials withheld….”

“Distressingly, Chevron has taken a view of its own discovery responsibilities sharply different from the obligations it seeks to impose on the (Ecuadorians) …. Chevron was highly critical of (the Ecuadorians’) privilege log descriptions that turn out to have been far more detailed (emphasis added) than Chevron's own.”

In the meantime, the wheels of justice have turned much more slowly in legal proceedings initiated by the Ecuadorians in California seeking Chevron's documents related to the Borja corruption scandal. See here.

Despite more than a year’s worth of motions filed by the Ecuadorians and granted by the court to compel Chevron and Borja to hand over documents, only a handful of largely irrelevant documents have actually been produced. With the legal action in New York dormant, Chevron is fighting even harder in California to stop anyone from discovering the depths to which the company sank with Borja in Ecuador. If Borja has potential criminal liability for trying to sabotage the proceedings in Ecuador, what does that say about Chevron's liability given that Borja was working for Chevron at the time and is now a “kept man” by the oil company in the U.S.? That's the question Chevron does not want answered.

Chevron has been trying ever since to cover up its involvement, even lying to the public about key facts in a press release -- such as characterizing Borja as a "Good Samaritan", failing to disclose that his sidekick Wayne Hansen (who helped him shoot the videos) was a convicted drug felon, or hiding the fact the pair met with Chevron lawyers as the scheme was unfolding.

Arguing for a balanced playing field for the Ecuadorians, attorney Jim Tyrrell of Patton Boggs recently asked a California magistrate judge to force Chevron, Borja and a private investigative firm paid by Chevron to stop hiding behind their privilege logs.

“… Respectfully, what we get back from Chevron and their allies is garbage. We can't tell what those privilege logs mean,” argued Tyrrell before Magistrate Judge Nathanial Cousins, who is expected to rule soon.

“Chevron has every one of my lead lawyers' documents for 18 years," Tyrell said. "We're quibbling over one here or there. That's not a level playing field, and that's not what justice is about.

“If anybody deserves a press account as to their conduct with respect to fraud, it isn't my side. It's the folks, respectfully, at Chevron.”

We are waiting to see if Magistrate Judge Cousins stands up to Chevron and its army of lawyers. He should allow a full airing of the facts related to this scandal.

Chevron’s Favorite Blogger, Zennie Abraham:

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

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




Zennie Abraham

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


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


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


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


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


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



Sam Singer

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


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


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

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


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


Singer also represents Recology. Zennie writes favorably of Recology.


Singer also represents Calpine. Zennie writes favorably of Calpine.


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


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


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


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


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

Criminal Charges Could Be Filed In U.S. Against Chevron’s Operative Diego Borja

Diego Borja -- the man who stands behind a now-discredited sting operation designed to derail the multi-billion dollar pollution lawsuit against Chevron -- could face criminal charges in the U.S. and in Ecuador, according to his lawyer. Borja’s illegal scheme (it is against the law in Ecuador to secretly videotape individuals) resulted in a 16-month delay of the $18 billion judgment against Chevron.

A transcript from federal court proceedings in San Francisco reveals that Borja's high-profile lawyer, Ted Cassman, who is paid by Chevron, admitted that his client could be faced with criminal charges in the U.S. in addition to an ongoing investigation by criminal prosecutors in Ecuador.

The Ecuadorians have asked the court to release documents related to the sting operation because they believe emails and other materials will prove Chevron’s involvement with Borja. Despite court orders to do so, Borja and other parties involved have released only 13 of over 700 documents requested.

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

"We believe the delay caused by this Chevron-orchestrated sting operation created untold suffering for thousands of people who live in a poisoned environment due to the company's reckless operational practices, It is imperative that Chevron immediately make public all documents related to this scheme."

Chevron In Trouble In Australia; National TV Show Blasts Chevron's Environmental Practices

As the oil giant prepares for new drilling operations in Australia, the country is beginning to question its toxic legacy. In "The Amazon's Toxic Mess," Sunday Night reporter Mike Monro joins Zoe Tryon to witness the devastation in Ecuador first hand.As Monro notes,"While Chevron is establishing its environmental credentials in Australia, in the Amazon,it’s fighting hard ball to avoid paying billions to clean up this toxic catastrophe."


The piece takes viewers right into the three meter deep pits of crude oil Chevron is refusing clean. In dramatic moments, the story demonstrates how Chevron contaminated the land and water and how that contamination has resulted in over 1,400 deaths and thousands more suffering from illnesses.

Check out the story here:

In her blog post on the story, Tryon goes into even more detail on the lengths Chevron has gone to cover up its legacy of polluting the Amazon. She illuminates the sad history of Chevron and Texaco's destruction of the land and how it has affected the indigenous people living in Ecuador:

"Over its 28 years of operation Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waters and waste crude directly into rivers and over 900 unlined toxic pits throughout the area impacting 30,000 indigenous people and farmers living in the area. These ‘formation waters’ contained some of the most dangerous chemicals known to man including Policyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH’s), benzene and toluene. One court-ordered technical report on file in Lago Agrio court house concludes that Texaco's pollution caused 2,091 cases of cancer among residents and led to 1,401 deaths from 1985 to 1998."

As Tryon notes, Chevron is "the largest holder of natural gas resources in Australia." If Chevron is willing to leave the people of Ecuador with a toxic waste dump in their backyards, what will it do to Australia?

Wikileaks Cable Reveals Chevron Tried To Buy Ecuadorian Government Support To Kill Contamination Lawsuit With A Few "Social Projects" In Amazon

Courthouse News in an article about the Wikileaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador revealed Chevron's hypocrisy in accusing the Ecuadorians of "conspiring" with Ecuadorian government officials in the long-running legal battle in the Amazon rainforest. Seems Chevron was "conspiring" with the U.S. Embassy. In his closing, legal reporter Adam Klasfeld reminds readers that even the highly-prejudiced Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan recognized that Chevron does not have "clean" hands. The surfacing of the Wikileaks' cables comes on the heels of a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that rebuked Kaplan in his effort to block the Ecuadorians from enforcing their $18 billion judgment in Ecuador.

Here's the story, and below are a few excerpts:

Reporter Adam Klasfeld wrote:

"Chevron tried to shake off multibillion environmental claims in Ecuador by lobbying government officials, even as it blasted opponents for allegedly playing to the courts' corrupt and political side, according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks…."

".... in a cable to the U.S. secretary of state, former U.S. Ambassador Linda Jewell wrote that Chevron had begun to "quietly explore" a deal with the government of Ecuador (GOE) to make the case disappear. (The cable read:) 'Chevron had begun to quietly explore with senior GOE officials whether it could implement a series of social projects in the concession area in exchange for GOE support for ending the case, but now that the expert has released a huge estimate for alleged damage, it might be hard for the GOE to go that route, even if it has the ability to bring the case to a close,' Jewell wrote on April 7, 2008…."

"....The Wikileaks cables also show that Chevron did not always have misgivings about the Ecuadorean courts. One rallying cry Chevron has used to undermine the Lago Agrio trial is a video that allegedly implicates the presiding judge, Juan Nuñez, in $3 million bribery scheme. Chevron has claimed it received videos unsolicited and published them over the Internet on Aug. 31, 2008….

"Two days after Chevron published the Nuñez footage, then-U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges sent a cable to the secretary reporting that Chevron lawyers phoned the Embassy to give diplomats a 'heads up' about the disclosure. Ecuador ultimately expelled Hodges this past April for disclosures she made in unrelated cables obtained by Wikileaks. While denying wrongdoing, Nuñez stepped down from the case to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But cracks quickly surfaced in Chevron's allegations. Summarizing hours of footage, The New York Times later reported, 'No bribes were shown on the tapes.'"

"Hodges explained in the cable that the 'tapes were recorded clandestinely by Diego Borja, an Ecuadorian who had performed work for Chevron as a logistics contractor, and Wayne Hansen, a U.S. citizen with no ties to Chevron.' Although Chevron has distanced itself from the cameramen, Courthouse News discovered emails currently under a court seal that show Hansen contacted the company's investigator months before the release of the videos. Hansen claimed in the email that Chevron duped him, and he threatened to ask Judge Nuñez for forgiveness if the company did not contact him."

"More than a year later, he sent another email to Borja's investigative firm. Hansen claimed that he was in Peru, to which he had apparently fled in defiance of a subpoena that would compel an explanation of the videos. Hodges, the ambassador, told Washington that Ecuadorean government officials were immediately skeptical and indignant about the recordings….."

".... In a follow-up cable sent about a week later, Hodges said that Ecuador's prosecutor general called on the (U.S.) attorney general to 'initiate proceedings against Chevron in the United States, presumably for violations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.' The Ecuadorean government has not backed off from allegations that Chevron orchestrated a 'judicial entrapment' scheme, and it continues to ask a U.S. federal judge to unseal the Borja and Hansen communications."

"In one of the first discovery proceedings Chevron initiated last year in New York, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan interrupted counsel for the Ecuadoreans as the lawyer assailed Chevron's litigation strategy.

'I am not naive,' Kaplan said. 'I don't assume that anyone's hands in this are clean.'"

Ecuadorians Beat Back Chevron's Effort To Evade Justice In Massive Contamination Lawsuit

Earlier this week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed what the Ecuadorians have said all along: Chevron has abused not only the laws in Ecuador but in its own country, and Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan jumped the gun in issuing a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the $18 billion judgment the Ecuadorians sought and won.

Han Shan of Amazon Watch captured the emotions of the day best in his blog here:

Huge Victory for Ecuadorians Fighting for Justice from Chevron as Oil Giant's Legal Strategy Derails,

Yesterday, a 3-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a stunning blow to Chevron's abusive and deceitful efforts to evade accountability for its oil disaster in Ecuador.

The appeals court threw out U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan's injunction that purported to prohibit the Ecuadorian plaintiffs from enforcing the $18 billion judgment against Chevron delivered by an Ecuadorian court in February. It also indefinitely stayed a trial that Judge Kaplan had scheduled for November over a preposterous countersuit filed in his court against the Ecuadorians and their attorneys, at which Chevron hoped to have the Ecuadorian verdict against the company declared unenforceable. The preliminary order from the 2nd Circuit came just one business day after a hearing before the panel on Friday, Sept. 16th, and said that a full ruling looking at the various issues will come "in due course."

Amazon Watch founder and Executive Director Atossa Soltani appears on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman to discuss the implications of the Ecuadorian plaintiffs' victory in the appeals court.

As legal reporter Alison Frankel writes in her On the Case column:

Monday's stunning two-page order from the panel gave the Ecuadorean plaintiffs their first victory in two years of battling in New York's federal courts. But it was a huge win.

The appeals court order constitutes a harsh rebuke to Judge Kaplan's over-reach in the case, making him Chevron's most valuable legal asset in the company's dirty fight to avoid responsibility for its pollution in Ecuador. The appeals panel didn't remove Judge Kaplan, as requested by the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, but as Marco Simons, legal director for EarthRights International writes on his blog:

"... the appeals court declined to remove Judge Kaplan, who the Ecuadorians believe is biased against them, from the case. But it's possible that, after the court issues its opinion, there won't be any case left for Kaplan to preside over."

The ruling also dealt a humiliating rebuke to the strategy driven by outside law firm Gibson Dunn, and Crutcher law firm and lead counsel Randy Mastro, who was literally laughed out of court at the hearing which led to the order.

After attending hearing after hearing at which Mastro made sweeping fraud and conspiracy allegations against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers supported by the flimsiest of fantasy, theory, and conjecture, it was truly a breath of fresh air for this author to watch the Gibson Dunn lawyer wither at questions from the appellate panel based in logic, common sense, and the rule of law.

Pablo Fajardo, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the Associated Press:

"We can now at least dream there will be justice and compensation for the damage, the environmental crime, committed by Chevron in Ecuador."

More than anything, the order from the appeals court represents the most stinging rebuke to the arrogant and deceitful strategy employed by the cabal of lawyers, spinmasters, and seriously-conflicted executives running a mini Orwellian empire within the company devoted to characterizing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs as criminals, and painting the company that poisoned them as victims. They thought overwhelming evidence of the company's crimes in Ecuador could be beaten back with shameless cynicism and an astonishing outlay of cash.

Even 2nd Circuit appeals court Judge Richard Wesley wondered aloud how much money had been spent by Chevron to pursue its legal strategy, and at what cost to shareholders.

Regulators, politicians, institutional investors, and shareholders who have heard Chevron management deny that the company faces any significant liability in Ecuador are going to be asking the most difficult questions that Chevron's lawyers and leadership (if one can call it that) have yet heard, now that the 2nd Circuit has affirmed the rule of law over Chevron's deceptive sensationalism.

Will Chevron management "face reality" as New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli—trustee of the New York State's Pension Fund with $780 million in Chevron stock—demanded during this past May's Chevron shareholder meeting? Or will CEO John Watson, architect of Chevron's takeover of Texaco and the company's toxic legacy in Ecuador, and other senior management allow the entire company to be driven off a cliff by outside lawyers who have no interest in ending a legal saga that continues to line their pockets?

Secoya indigenous leader Humberto Piaguaje (L) and campesino communtiy leader Servio Curipoma (R)—who have both worked tirelessly to demand justice from Chevron—outside of a courthouse in New York on Sept. 16.

Either way, this decision brings the people of the Ecuadorian Amazon one step closer to justice, and we call on Chevron's management to do the right thing by meeting the company's moral, legal and fiduciary obligations to clean up its contamination in Ecuador. Of course, justice delayed is justice denied, and the men, women, and children of the Ecuadorian Amazon have suffered for far too long already.

More coverage:

BBC: 'US court rules against Chevron in Ecuador oil case'

Global Post: 'Chevron must pay for Amazon damage: court'

The Guardian (UK): 'Chevron loses latest stage of Amazon pollution battle'

The San Francisco Chronicle: 'U.S. court rules against Chevron in Ecuador case'
– Han

Chevron Misleads U.S. Courts About Pressuring Ecuador's Government & U.S. Embassy in Ecuador to Halt Indigenous Groups' Contamination Lawsuit

This DeSmogBlog post clearly shows how Chevron is misleading, if not downright lying, to U.S. courts about pressuring Ecuador's government and the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador to halt a lawsuit, filed by five indigenous groups against the oil giant for massive oil contamination in their Amazon rainforest homeland. Chevron has accused the Ecuadorians suing the company of inappropriate interactions with Ecuadorian government officials, while denying its own. More to come on this issue.

EXCLUSIVE: Documents Reveal Chevron’s Changing Tune In Ecuador Rainforest Destruction Case

Brendan DeMelle

New documents uncovered in the ongoing legal battle over Chevron/Texaco’s destruction of the Ecuadorian rainforest show that, while Chevron recently labeled the guilty verdict and $18 billion fine leveled against its Texaco unit by an Ecuadorian court as “illegitimate and unenforceable,” it was in fact the oil company that lobbied fiercely to have the case moved out of U.S.courts to the Ecuadorian justice system.


DeSmogBlog has reviewed corporate memos, letters and records of meetings documenting the oil giant’s efforts to have the case moved from New York - where it was originally filed by the plaintiffs - to Ecuador, where the company hoped to use its influential connections within the government at the time to have the case dismissed.


Further, Chevron’s accusation that the plaintiffs conspired with Ecuadorian judicial and government officials is quizzical in light of the documents revealing that, in fact, it was the oil company’s representatives who held ethically questionable meetings with government officials.


While the plaintiffs in the case did meet with Ecuadorian government officials, they did so to report a crime - the falsification of a remediation agreement based on test samples taken at the so-called “remediated” sites during the trial.


The oil company’s secretive meetings with the Ecuadorian government served an entirely different purpose. The documents appear to indicate the company’s potentially corrupt tampering with international negotiations between the U.S.and Ecuador over which country’s justice system was the correct venue for hearing the case.


From 1993 until the case was moved to Ecuador in 2002, Chevron argued aggressively in U.S. courts that Ecuador was the preferred forum for the suit because the pollution occurred there. It was the plaintiffs who first contended that the case should be heard in New York, where Texaco was headquartered, and away from the possible corruption in Ecuador.


Historically, the oil industry has had a tight grip on Latin American governments, enjoying immense control over their own destiny. Wheels were greased with bribes, and government officials were loyal to the companies’ interests. Ecuador’s government was not immune to this oil industry influence, as the documents reveal.

For example, a 1993 letter addressed to the State Department from the Ecuadorian ambassador to the United States was written with the help of Texaco government affairs official Michael Kostiw (who happens to be a former CIA operative dubbed “Bacon Guy” by the Washington Post for his infamous exit from the agency over the theft of a package of bacon, shortly before he was hired by Chevron).


The letter that the company man helped to craft for the ambassador argues that the case should be tried in Ecuador, not the United States, because “only Ecuadorian authorities have the competence to pass judgment on such cases.”[PDF]


The hypocrisy of that statement is now stunning in the wake of Chevron’s reaction to the guilty verdict handed down recently by a competent Ecuadorian judge who originally fined the company some $8 billion for its destruction of the rainforest and local communities, an amount that later rose to over $18 billion due to Chevron’s failure to acknowledge and apologize for its pollution. Instead, Chevron immediately labeled the judgment “illegitimate and unenforceable” and seemed to suggest that Ecuador had committed “fraud” by leveling the guilty verdict against Texaco.


That is in sharp contrast to the company’s earlier touting of the fairness and independence of the Ecuadorian court system in affidavits submitted to the court. Chevron argued loudly that Ecuador was the correct venue to try the case(PDF pg 18). In one affidavit, the company’s own hand-picked expert noted that the U.S. court “should not be concerned about the ability of the Ecuadorian courts to dispense independent, impartial justice…. Ecuador’s judicial system is neither corrupt nor unfair… Ecuador has a democratic government with an independent judiciary.”[PDF]


A 1994 internal memo from Texaco consultant Holwill & Company describes Texaco’s efforts to lobby the Ecuadorian government to convince the U.S.courts the case should be tried in Ecuador. The memo notes that:

“The top priority… must be to protect Texaco, Inc., from the lawsuit in US courts.To the extent that your [Chevron’s] litigators believe that an amicus brief by the [government of Ecuador] will be helpful to their efforts, we should first focus on getting that back on track.

This can be done by working with certain opinion leaders in Ecuador to explain the implications of the law suit for investments in Ecuador.”The memos also reveal some hints of the corruption among Ecuadorian officials that the oil company would later hope to leverage in order to derail the lawsuit. Long before the company’s lobbying efforts succeeded in winning a change of venue and shifting jurisdiction over the trial from New York to Ecuador – the company had identified allies in key positions of the Ecuadorian government ready to act in the company’s best interests.


A 1993 memo from Texaco consultant Holwill & Company details the lobbyists’ meeting with the Ecuadorian Minister of Energy, who told them he had “been tough on the company” in a press conference, but he then “winked” and said “it’s all politics.”


The memo goes on to reveal that the Minister of Energy had offered the job of sub-secretary for the environment to a former Texaco employee – “a post important to Texaco.”


A separate 1993 memo relays the results of an “extremely productive and cordial”meeting between Texaco officials and Ecuador’s Vice President at the time, Alberto Dahik, about efforts to reach a financial agreement with the Ecuadorian government to drop the government’s claims over the pollution. The memo reveals many instances in which Dahik went out of his way to help Texaco resolve the dispute quickly in order to keep the company interested in investing further in Ecuador, including at a fast-approaching round of oil leases.


According to the memo:

“Dahik stressed again his desire to resolve the matter and to encourage additional investment in Ecuador by Texaco.…the resolution of the fiscal issues would permit the company to participate in the Seventh Round of Oil Leases. … (Comment: Dahik seemed as interested in touting Texaco’s interest publicly as he was in Texaco actually making new investments.)”

The memo author gloats on more than one occasion at the ease with which the company’s requests were handled by the vice president, who went around key ministers who might have objected, dealing with lower level staff to help the company.

“We felt that it was significant that Dahik by-passed finance minister Robalin and called a third level official instead…”

During the course of two decades of fossil fuel extraction and drilling activities, Texaco contaminated huge swatches of rainforest, displacing native peoples, threatening water supplies and public health and permanently altering the delicate jungle ecosystems that supported the indigenous population’s culture and way of life. What remains of the proud local population faces a legacy of cancer and other health maladies. They must also endure Chevron’s condescending assurances that their health problems are due to their poverty and lack of sanitation – as if they hadn’t coexisted with the land in fine health prior to the oilmen’s arrival.


As those who have seen the documentary Crude understand, there is no question that Petroecuador – which assumed some of the oil operations left behind when Texaco bailed from Ecuador in 1991 – is guilty of its own share of pollution and malfeasance, but Chevron’s attempts to hide behind the “consortium” that it built with the state-owned gas company are disingenuous.


Chevron’s culpability for its legacy of pollution is as clear as the rainwater the people now rely on for drinking and cooking since they can no longer safely use the contaminated groundwater and river water that supported their civilization prior to the oil company’s arrival.


Chevron should accept the Ecuadorian court’s verdict and apologize to the people of Ecuador. But instead, the company will appeal, delay and deny responsibility until there are no victims left standing. With the oil industry, “it’s all politics.”