Judge Kaplan’s Absurd Decisions

It seems like Judge Kaplan is confused over what his role in the Chevron trial is. Looking at his behavior, comments and rulings, you’d think he is representing Chevron. He is supposed to be impartial and make a fair decision whether the multibillion-dollar judgment against Chevron is enforceable or not. And most importantly, he is supposed to listen to everyone’s arguments. Instead, he decided to exclude the Ecuadorians’ lead lawyer Steven Donziger from the trial. Even though Donziger has been a key person in the historic pollution case for over 18 years, he is not allowed to be in the courtroom as crucial decisions are being made about his case.

Read more here and here

Criminals On Chevron's Payroll

Have you ever wondered what Chevron is spending its money on, other than huge bonuses and salaries for its top executives? Well, today's post on Chevron Pit answers this question. Apparently some of Chevron's profits goes to the self-proclaimed “dirty tricks” operative Diego Borja and his partner, a drug felon named Wayne Hansen. They don't even need to do any actual work for Chevron, just a few illegal operations like trying to set up the Ecuadorian judge who was presiding over the pollution lawsuit. If you want to find out what being Chevron's dirty operative will get you, go here.

Chevron giving away millions to its executives…

Instead of spending at least a small portion of the huge profits on the cleanup of the toxic mess in Ecuador and bringing relief to those suffering from Chevron’s contamination, Chevron’s board of directors decided to give that money to its top officials.  Chevron’s CEO John Watson has just received a raise and is now making $1.6 million a year!!!

Apparently to make millions you need to be unscrupulous, manipulative and make sure your company ranks high among the least reputable American corporations. Never mind billions of gallons of toxins deliberately dumped in the Ecuadorian Amazon; never mind thousands of people suffering from the contamination; never mind all the lies and manipulation!

More On Judge Lewis Kaplan

Chevron Pit just posted a few quotes form Lewis Kaplan, the judge who blocked the enforcement of the $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest.

“On the other hand, we are dealing here with a company of considerable importance to our economy that employs thousands all over the world, that supplies a group of commodities, gasoline, heating oil, other fuels and lubricants on which every one of us depends every single day. I don't think there is anybody in this courtroom who wants to pull his car into a gas station to fill up and finds that there isn't any gas there because these folks have attached it in Singapore or wherever else.”

Judge Kaplan sounds very worried about Chevron’s wellbeing and shows absolutely no concern for Chevron’s victims.

Read more here.

Chevron’s Heartless Team

I started this blog because I was outraged by Chevron’s lack of concern for the environment and the communities suffering because of Chevron’s refusal to clean up its own toxic mess. With each shocking development in the lawsuit, I wonder who stands behind Chevron’s abusive defense campaign. Who would willingly choose to stand in the way of Ecuadorians fighting for justice? Apparently, with the right amount of money, a team of heartless experts is not hard to find. To meet all of the Chevron’s Human Rights Hitmen visit Chevron Pit and RAN’s websites.

U.S. Judge Siding With Chevron.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan who blocked the enforcement of the $9.5 billion judgment is not objective and clearly sides with Chevron. The judge even encouraged Chevron to file the RICO charges against the plaintiffs and their legal team. It is unbelievable that anyone would voluntarily choose to stand in the way of the Ecuadorians fighting for justice especially since scientific evidence has proven Chevron is guilty of dumping over 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into Amazon and destroying their lives.

The Damage In Ecuador Is So Great, Chevron’s Own Tests Can’t Hide It

Chevron hired an independent expert to test the soil in Ecuador to prove there is no contamination, but the environmental damage in the Amazon is so great even Chevron’s own expert couldn’t deny it.

Here’s what Chevron’s tests showed:

• All but one facility had contaminated water discharge into creeks and streams.


• Hydrocarbon contamination at all facilities and a majority of drilling sites


• Water waste was historically discharged into surface water.


• “An oil spill prevention and control plan was not identified. The audit teams also did not observe any spill control or containment equipment.”


• Rather than cleaning chemical or hydrocarbon spills, the oil company covered the spills with sand.

Read more here.

Video: oil worker talking about Chevron's operation in Ecuador

Chevron dumped over 16 billion gallons of wastewater polluting rivers and streams in the Ecuadorian rainforest. It is horrible especially since Chevron knew how harmful the toxins were, but what makes it even worse is the fact that Chevron had a safer system designed but chose NOT to use it in order to save money.

Watch this unbelievable video of an oil worker talking about Chevron instructing the employees to drain the chemicals straight into the environment.

Chevron & The Koch Brothers

Chevron’s campaign to defame the Ecuadorians suing the company for oil contamination is starting to sound a lot like the attacks by the arch-conservative Koch Brothers, the billionaires who have financed campaigns against liberal groups, like Common Cause. This blog by Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club makes that clear. I’m not surprised that Chevron is following the Koch Brothers’ playbook — the company’s general counsel, Hew Pate, and the former general counsel, Charles James, worked for the Justice Department under George Bush and with the lawyers who wrote the torture memos. What a resume these guys have!

A Gang of Thieves -- Without Honor or Humor

Carl Pope
Chairman, Sierra Club
Posted: February 16, 2011 01:47 PM

San Francisco -- That's the thought that comes to mind this week, watching the behavior of Big Oil. In Ecuador, a Court found that Chevron owes local communities $8 billion for damages left behind from an oil drilling business Chevron inherited when it took over Texaco. Chevron's response was not that the damages hadn't been done, but that the Ecuadoran decision was "illegitimate" and that the company simply wouldn't pay its debts. (Does this remind you of Exxon-Mobile around the Valdez decisions? It would be nice if the oil industry was satisfied to be the world's richest, but at least paid its bills.)

Of course, Chevron's Ecuadoran bill is more than matched by the amount of direct subsidies Big Oil draws from American taxpayers. The Obama Administration, in its proposed new budget, thinks that there are probably better ways to spend taxpayer dollars, and has proposed eliminating $54 billion of these subsidies, including $10 billion that flows from the U.S. Treasury to such governments as Saudi Arabia. (You might not have known that oil producers are, in fact, one of the major recipients of this form of foreign aid. Big Oil pays the Saudis, and the Treasury reimburses Big Oil.) The new Tea Party-influenced Republican leadership in Congress doesn't seem to agree: the Defense Department, the nuclear industry, and Big Oil are virtually the only items in the federal budget protected from proposed slash-and-burn budget cuts.

If you are running this kind of racket, it is always good to have friends in high places, and the oil industry is making sure that politicians remain in its hock. The billionaire Koch Brothers announced that in 2012 they plan to raise $88 million to purchase influence in Washington. When Common Cause organized a protest at the secret Palm Springs gathering the brothers host, conservatives yelled "foul" and began organizing dirty tricks against Common Cause. This is classic Koch style; they've also brought a lawsuit against pranksters who sent out a press release last December saying the brothers had seen the light and would no longer fund global warming denial groups. The lawsuit claimed that the spoof press release's authors were "guilty of trademark infringement, cybersquatting, unfair competition, and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," a criminal statute that penalizes those who hack into protected governmental and private computer systems.

It's hard to take such a lawsuit seriously. But the Koch Brothers are serious. Anyone who shines a light on their secretive effort to take over the U.S. government can expect this kind of bullying. And while Big Oil is too restrained to carry on these kinds of shenanigans here in the U.S., the Chevron response in Ecuador shows their true face.

Chevron Found Guilty of Contaminating Ecuadorian Rain Forest

On Monday an Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron to pay $8.9 billion to clean up 16 billion gallons of toxic waste that Chevron dumped into the rain forest in Ecuador.

For many years Chevron has been pointing fingers at others and trying to manipulate its way out of the responsibility for the toxic mess but it all came to nothing when faced with overwhelming evidence that plaintiffs submitted to the court showing Chevron not only contaminated the rain forest but it did it knowingly.

Chevron built a substandard system and continued to use it knowing it’s leaking toxins into the ground. In a 1980 letter a Texaco official said that building a safer system would be too expensive and recommended using the faulty one. Chevron took that advice and continued putting toxic byproduct of oil drilling into 900 unlined and unprotected pits for many years.

The judgment is great news for the Ecuadorians suffering from the contamination and anyone who cares about the environment. It is time for a proper clean up of those toxic oil pits, not just throwing dirt on top of them like Chevron did.

Chevron Tries To Silence The Critics Again

Chevron has filed a racketeering lawsuit against the named Ecuadorians who are suing Chevron for the contamination in the Amazon . This is not only another desperate attempt to run away from what could be a costly judgment for them in Ecuador, but also an example of Chevron’s bullying of anyone who dares to speak up against them. Just how low will Chevron go? It files criminal charges against the very people suffering from the company’s shoddy drilling practices that led to the destruction of their land and culture and, in thousands of cases, the death and illness of people living near Chevron’s former oil sites. This is unbelievable.

Chevron’s lawsuit was filed under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act which was designed to prosecute the Mafia. I read about it in this San Francisco Chronicle article. It quotes Sean Hecht, executive director of the Environmental Law Center at UCLA. saying that Chevron’s suit looks more like a form of SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit that seeks to essentially silence people from protesting.

"I can't judge this as a SLAPP suit, but it looks like it has some of the hallmarks," Hecht said . "It's trying to convince someone to throw in the towel."

As the evidence against Chevron mounts up, Chevron is now trying to force the Ecuadorians to back away. I’m betting they are going nowhere. Also, remember that Chevron had five protestors arrested last year at its shareholder meeting and prevented 20 people, many from foreign countries, including Ecuador, from attending the meeting, even though they had legitimate proxies.

Chevron Tells More Lies!

Chevron must have a bottomless box full of dirty tricks. The oil giant has been using all kinds of schemes for 18 years to get out of the responsibility for the toxic mess left behind in Ecuador. When you think you have seen it all, Chevron comes up with another deplorable lie. This time Chevron is alleging that some of the plaintiffs’ signatures were forged on the lawsuit!

I understand that Chevron’s executives are in panic mode because they could face a multi-billion damage award, but have they not learned anything yet? Most of those schemes not only failed, but also backfired and hurt Chevron’s reputation in the end.

Earlier this week, more than two dozens of the plaintiffs whose signatures Chevron claims were forged gathered at one of the oil waste pits to verify their signatures. Chevron’s spokesperson James Craig called it a “media circus”. From my perspective, though, the only clown is Chevron.

UPDATE

I haven’t posted anything in a while. I have been traveling and wasn’t able to update the blog regularly. There have been a few developments but two things have not changed: Ecuadorians are still getting sick and dying because of Chevron’s contamination and Chevron refuses to do anything about it.

Here are a few headlines I missed:

Chevron Accused Of 'World's Worst Oil-Related Disaster' In Ecuador: Alleged Evidence Submitted In Lawsuit

Diego Borja, his wife Sarah Portilla, and collaborator Wayne Hansen have left California after being called to testify about falsifying evidence in Ecuador environmental trial

Comedy Video Rips Chevron's New "Greenwashing" PR Campaign

Chevron’s Andrea Neuman Sanctioned For Abusive Questioning

Chevron lawyers’ unprofessional practices are not going unnoticed anymore. Andrea Neuman , one of the lead lawyers in the Ecuador lawsuit is the fourth Chevron lawyer to be sanctioned by either an Ecuadorian or a U.S. court. Neuman is accused of trying to intimidate an American technical expert during a recent deposition. Chevron has been playing by its own rules for a long time blatantly ignoring the rule of law.

Visit Chevron Pit for more details.

Andrea Neuman

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. (MORE)

“We Agree”, Chevron Needs To Clean Up Its Mess

Chevron’s “We Agree” advertising campaign was designed by Chevron’s public relations team to try to convince us that Chevron is more than just an oil company. We are supposed to believe that Chevron cares about people and the environment. Chevron’s strategy was very simple: ignore disastrous environmental record and talk about all the good things Chevron could, but of course will never do.
Activists from The Yes Man launched their own website and sent out faux press release mocking Chevron’s ads. The website was made to look like it’s a part of Chevron’s campaign but instead of empty promises it is based on truth and the real image of Chevron people should see.
Some journalists got fooled by the faux press release and this morning everyone is talking about it. Great!

The True Cost of Chevron

The oil waste Chevron left behind in the Ecuadorian rain forest is making people sick. According to American expert Dr. Daniel Rourke 10,000 people are at risk of getting cancer. The longer Chevron refuses to clean up, the bigger this environmental crisis gets.

Read more about Dr. Rourke’s findings here

Her leg amputated because of a cancerous tumor, Modesta Briones sits in her house near Parahuaco oil well #2 in the Ecuadoran Amazon.

Terrifying Truth

Last month Chevron’s lawyer Andrea Neuman deposed an environmental expert William Power. The lawyer for the Amazonian communities suing Chevron took the opportunity and cross-examined Mr. Powers. His testimony revealed some horrifying truths about Chevron’s contamination in the Ecuadorian rain forest. Below you can read a few quotes, visit Chevron in Ecuador for more details and to read how Mr. Power’s testimony sent Chevron’s lawyers into total panic.

Q: Now, when Chevron-Texaco designed its pits in the Ecuadorian Amazon, what design did it use? 


Powers: Dug a hole in the dirt and deposited the drilling muds in the unlined hole.

Q: And if Chevron-Texaco was designing those pits in the United States, would it have been able to dig a pit in the – and put in the drilling muds as you described?

Powers: No.

Q: What's the consequence of Chevron's design of its pits in the Lago Agrio concession?

Powers: Two consequences: the leeching of the chemicals into the ground, and ultimately into the ground water; and the overflow of the pits due to lack of maintenance and rain water and overflowing directly into the drainage channels surrounding that pit.

Q: And what's the basis for your conclusions concerning the Chevron-Texaco's pits?

Powers: Having viewed the pits and reviewed the nature of how those pits were designed, utilized, and the fact that – it is uncontested that the pits were left with drilling mud in them.

Q: And when Chevron developed the oil field in Ecuador, did it do so in conformity with standards for treatment of production water that were in place in the United States at the time that it was building its infrastructure in Ecuador?

Powers: No.

Q: Can you describe the ways in which Chevron's Ecuadorian concession fell below standards it would have been required to meet if that field were in the United States?

Powers: Based on the salinity and the produced water from the field, the company would have been required to reinject that water into a subsurface formation. Could not have operated that oil field or produced a single barrel of oil without having that produced water injection system operational.

Q: By failing to reinject production water in the Lago Agrio concession, what impact did that have on the environment in Lago Agrio?

Powers: It contaminated the surface water at the points where it was injected, not only with the high salinity of the produced water in an environment that has almost no natural salinity, but the trace contaminants of heavy metals and oil also contributed to the generalized contamination of that surface water.

Q: If you include the produced water in your comparison between the discharge into the environment from Chevron's Lago Agrio concession, when you compare that to the Exxon-Valdez oil discharge from that catastrophe, how would you compare them?

Powers: Both the produced water and the crude oil are toxic. The – you can argue about the relative toxicity of them both. But the amount of toxic liquids that should not have been in the environment in Ecuador was at least 30 times the quantity or the volume of crude that was spilled in the Exxon-Valdez disaster.

Chevron Misleads U.S. Courts with Inaccurate Translation

I just read that Chevron’s lawyers submitted inaccurate translation of Pablo Fajardo’s comments to U.S. Federal court as evidence. By inaccurate I mean changed to fit Chevron’s lies and completely different from what was actually said. Ohhh… the audacity! How can unethical behavior like this go unpunished? How far will Chevron be allowed to go before somebody says enough?!

See Amazon Defense Coalition’s press release below.

Chevron Misleads U.S. Courts with Inaccurate Translation in Multi-Billion Dollar Ecuador Contamination Lawsuit
Gibson Dunn’s Aggressive Legal Strategy Backfires In Federal Court
Amazon Defense Coalition
1 October September 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

New York, New York – Chevron has been submitting an inaccurate and misleading translation to U.S. federal courts as part of its effort to evade liability in the multi-billion dollar Ecuador environmental lawsuit, according to court papers filed recently.

Chevron’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who recently took over the Ecuador litigation for the company, submitted a highly misleading and inaccurate translation of lead Ecuadorian attorney Pablo Fajardo describing the role of court-appointed expert Richard Cabrera. Attacking Cabrera, who in 2008 submitted a damages assessment against Chevron of $27 billion, has been the centerpiece of the oil giant’s strategy to discredit the Ecuadorian judicial system to defeat enforcement of an expected adverse judgment.

Gibson Dunn brags on its website that its litigators in the Ecuador case have been described by American Lawyer magazine as the “Game Changers”; the firm notes that “clients in deep trouble turn to Gibson Dunn for fresh, aggressive thinking and innovative rescues.”

In a brief filed on Sept. 28 by representatives of the Amazonian communities in federal courts in New York and elsewhere, the plaintiffs blast Chevron for its erroneous translation of comments made by Fajardo. According to Chevron’s translation of a 2007 meeting, Fajardo told a group of scientists in Quito that Cabrera would simply “sign the report and review it.”

According to an accurate translation of the exchange, Fajardo actually said that what Cabrera “will do is give his criteria… right… his opinion, and sign the report, and review as well.”

Chevron also excluded from its court submission the contemporaneous translation of Fajardo during the meeting, which verifies that Chevron’s translation was manipulated.

"What Fajardo actually said in the meeting is radically different from what Chevron claimed he said via its bogus translation," said Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the communities. "Once again, Chevron is misrepresenting facts to courts around the country in support of its contrived 'fraud' narrative."

"When the facts don't fit the contrived narrative, Chevron's lawyers seem content to just make them up," she added.

Chevron has claimed to U.S. courts that ex parte contacts with experts in Ecuador is illegal, when in fact the practice was commonly used by both parties and sanctioned by the court, said Hinton. Lawyers on both sides of the dispute were invited by the court to provide materials to Cabrera and other experts; Cabrera and these other experts adopted some of the materials provided by the parties.

The plaintiffs also have submitted evidence that Chevron's lawyers, on a regular basis, met ex parte with judges overseeing the trial.

This is not the first time that Chevron has manipulated the meaning of translations for legal or public relations purposes.

In 2009, Chevron accused the Ecuadorian judge then presiding over the case of saying an appeal by Chevron of an adverse decision would only be a "formality" when what he actually said was the parties would have to observe the "formalities" of the appeals process. Chevron then used the misleading translation to claim to the media that the judge had "fixed" the trial.

So far this year Chevron has sought to depose 23 persons in the U.S. associated with the Ecuador case, including two lawyers who have represented the plaintiffs.

Chevron’s strategy of using U.S. discovery rules to harass the Amazonian communities in Ecuador – termed “abusive litigation” by the plaintiffs -- has not gone unnoticed. One U.S. federal magistrate judge recently ruled that Chevron’s discovery strategy is “spiraling out of control” and is an attempt to circumvent the rules of Ecuador’s courts, where Chevron had the trial moved after it was originally filed in U.S. federal court in 1993.

Don't Let Anyone Mention Ecuador!

A few months ago I blogged about Chevron having protesters arrested at its annual shareholder meeting in Houston. Chevron’s CEO John Watson went even further and filled criminal charges against Chevron’s longtime critic Antonia Juhasz for speaking out about Chevron’s despicable environmental record. I wonder if it was also John Watson who thought forcing people to stay quiet would be a solution.

Read more on Chevron Pit.