NEW YORK, Jan. 23 /CSRwire/ - Chevron has paid a whopping $2.2 million to a longtime company contractor who repeatedly threatened to expose the company's attempts to mislead the court and corrupt the landmark environmental trial in Ecuador, according to new court documents. Links to documents are below at the end of press release.
The stunning information could further damage the legal prospects of the oil giant, which earlier this month found itself on the losing end of an appellate court decision in Ecuador affirming an $18 billion liability for causing what experts believe could be the world's worst oil contamination. See here and here.
Chevron has been repeatedly sanctioned in Ecuador for trying to sabotage the trial, intimidate judges into ruling in favor of the company, and using a secret lab to hide its dirty soil samples from the court. See here, here and here.
Chevron paid the $2.2 million – what plaintiffs call "hush money" – to Diego Borja (pictured), a self-described Chevron "dirty tricks" operative who lifted soil and water samples during dozens of critical court-supervised inspections during the eight-year trial from 2003 to 2011.
Aside from his trial duties, Borja in 2009 orchestrated a video scheme to entrap an Ecuador judge in a fake bribery scandal, which backfired against the company; he later was recorded on a phone call describing evidence that Chevron cooked laboratory results to hide its contamination from the court. See here and here.
more...Bloomberg
by Patricia Hurtado
January 19, 2012
Chevron Corp. (CVX) lost another bid before a U.S appeals court for an order blocking enforcement of an Ecuadorean court’s $18 billion environmental damages verdict.
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Huffington Post
January 16, 2012
Kerry Kennedy
President
The Robert F. Kennedy Cente
for Justice & Human Rights
Communities Release Document Summarizing Wide Body of Scientific Evidence
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Paul Paz y Miño
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January 04, 2012
Rainforest Communities Issue Statement Condemning Chevron's Greed & Criminal Misconduct in South American Country
QUITO, Ecuador, Jan. 3, 2012 (PRNewswire-USNewswire) -- The Lago Agrio plaintiffs issued the following statement on the ruling from the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios in Lago Agrio, Ecuador...
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more...Ecuadoran plaintiffs in an $18 billion lawsuit against Chevron say the company has been trying to “bribe” its way out of the case by offering to support the Yasuní-ITT imitative, an innovative conservation effort
BY JIM WYSS, Miami Herald
December 22, 2011
