Wednesday, September 30th 2009
“An Ecuadorean court dealt the plaintiffs a setback Tuesday in a $27 billion environmental contamination lawsuit against Chevron Corp., accepting the presiding judge’s request to be removed from the case.”
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Wednesday, September 30th 2009
“The Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios decided on Monday to accept the recusal of Nunez.”
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Wednesday, September 30th 2009
“Judge Nunez asked to be removed from the case earlier this month after Chevron released a video in which two businessmen repeatedly ask him if he planned to rule against Chevron and he is heard to answer “yes.” Chevron says the businessmen were asked to pay million-dollar bribes for a remediation contract by a political ally of Correa.”
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Wednesday, September 30th 2009
“A court in Ecuador has said it will let a judge overseeing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against US supermajor Chevron recuse himself from the case after initially denying his request.”
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Tuesday, September 29th 2009
“Nunez “has betrayed the public trust and violated his solemn duty to judge impartially and independently,” Adolfo Callejas Ribadeneira, a Chevron lawyer, said in the filing.”
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Tuesday, September 29th 2009
“In essence, by filing the suit, Chevron is requesting arbitration through a procedure established by a United Nations commission specializing in international trade law. That procedure is separate from the core lawsuit, although under the 1997 pact, Ecuador is required to recognize arbitration as binding.”
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Tuesday, September 29th 2009
Time and again, Pablo Fajardo has used his brother’s death for PR purposes in attempt to cast suspicion on Chevron and ostensibly further the goals of the lawsuit. In various speeches, public engagements and news stories, Fajardo has implied that Texaco (Chevron) was responsible for his brother’s 2004 murder. Below are two instances of statements made by Pablo Fajardo that pertain to his brother’s death.
In reality, Wilson Fajardo’s death has been thoroughly investigated and police reports have identified the local individuals responsible. In fact, prior to his first public claims of Texaco’s (Chevron) purported involvement, Fajardo filed a statement with the District Prosecutor at the time of his brother’s murder that makes no mention of Texaco or Chevron. In an official statement he alleges that three local men who had a history with his brother were responsible for the murder.
Further, an El Commercio editorial implies that Fajardo’s death was the result of comments made about the FARC and drug trafficking while working as a reporter with Radio Ecuador.
Whatever the case may be, official police reports, investigations and news reports lack any suggestion that Texaco (Chevron) was involved. Fajardo himself admitted that Chevron had no role in these events. Nonetheless, Fajardo continues to make misleading public statements about his brother’s murder and Chevron’s involvement.
Complaint – Murder of Wilson Fajardo
Police Report – Wilson Fajardo murder
Tuesday, September 29th 2009
9/29/09 Update – For the second time in a month, Judge Juan Núñez has been removed from the Lago Agrio trial. The Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios decided on Monday to accept the recusal of Núñez. Chevron is continuing to push for the annulment of the judge’s previous decisions, including rulings to facilitate, as well as shield from scrutiny, the biased Cabrera process.
From 9/24/09 - In yet another twist in the Chevron case in Ecuador, Judge Juan Núñez has been reinstated as the presiding Judge in the Lago Agrio court.
Just four days after Chevron released a series of videos that depicted serious judicial misconduct, Ecuadorian Judge Juan Núñez was asked by Ecuador’s Prosecutor General to recuse himself from presiding over the Chevron environmental lawsuit in Lago Agrio.
However, this past Tuesday, the Ecuadorian court announced that Judge Núñez would resume presiding over the Chevron case on the basis that he had failed to provide any evidence to support his recusal. Meanwhile, the court has not ruled on the merits of Chevron’s petition for Judge Núñez to be removed from the case or the extensive evidence that Chevron provided of corruption, bias and prejudgment.
All along, Chevron has maintained that no judge who has participated in the type of meetings (shown here) could possibly have rendered a legitimate decision. Through his past rulings, Judge Núñez has demonstrated a clear bias in this case as he has consistently shielded the corrupt Cabrera process from any sort of reasonable inquiry and scrutiny. Judge Núñez has also made multiple prejudicial public statements clearly indicating that he lacks objectivity, is biased, and has prejudged the case. Now, with the release of the evidence that Judge Núñez was involved in inappropriate meetings connected to a bribery plot, there is further proof that he has prejudged the case.
The U.S. State Department, in its Investment Climate Statement on Ecuador released in February 2009, has found that Ecuador’s “courts are often susceptible to outside pressure and bribes. Neither Congressional oversight nor internal judicial branch mechanisms have shown a consistent capacity to effectively investigate and discipline allegedly corrupt judges.”
Should Judge Núñez continue to preside over the case, it would further validate the State Department’s findings and reinforce that the rule of law in Ecuador has been compromised.
Monday, September 28th 2009
“Chevron Corporation, the U.S. oil company being tried in Ecuadorian courts for environmental damages estimated at $26 billion, has gone on the attack by filing an international arbitration claim before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.”
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Friday, September 25th 2009
“The company’s press release emphasized that Chevron is not alone in highlighting “the demise” of Ecuador’s judiciary. It quoted from a recent State Department report: “Systemic weakness and susceptibility to political or economic pressures in the rule of law constitute the most important problem faced by U.S. companies investing in or trading with Ecuador.”
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Friday, September 25th 2009
“The California-based firm said it had filed a claim against Ecuador “citing violations of the country’s obligations under the United States-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, investment agreements, and international law.
“The complaint stems from the government of Ecuador’s exploitation of the going lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador, as well as the government’s failure to uphold its duties under decade-old contracts.””
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Friday, September 25th 2009
“Chevron, which hasn’t drilled a well in Ecuador since 1992, wants arbitrators to require the government to comply with agreements signed from 1994 to 1998 absolving the company from any environmental liabilities. Chevron also asked to be compensated for damage to its reputation caused by Ecuador’s “outrageous and illegal conduct,” as well as legal fees.”
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Thursday, September 24th 2009
“Chevron, which has in the past exposed some fraudulent claims by people who claimed they had cancer when they didn’t, has also presented evidence of bias and corruption by a judge overseeing the case in Ecuador. But it hasn’t ever succeeded in having all the claims against it thrown out.
Now Chevron says the government of Ecuador is “exploiting the ongoing lawsuit against Chevron” and that it hasn’t complied with contracts it signed with Texaco in the past relating to such legal claims.”
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Thursday, September 24th 2009
“Chevron has been aggressively defending itself against the lawsuit, in which plaintiffs are seeking $27bn in damages. The company demanded the removal of the judge, Juan Núñez, after releasing videos it claimed contained evidence of political interference and corruption in the country.”
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Thursday, September 24th 2009
“When, say, a big U.S.-based oil company gets sued a small country or its residents, it typically sticks to a tightly choreographed script. It plays an aggressive defense, sure, one handled by fancy BigLaw lawyers, but it otherwise takes a “move along, nothing to see here” approach, punctuated by clipped and rote statements to the press.
But this isn’t Chevron’s approach, at least not in regard to a long-running situation in Educador. The oil giant has gone on the offensive, recently suing Ecuador’s government under international trade law.”
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Thursday, September 24th 2009
“US supermajor Chevron, which is fighting a $27 billion environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, said it has filed an international arbitration claim against the Quito government.
Chevron’s claim, related to the pending lawsuit against the company, cites violations of a treaty between the US and Ecuador, investment agreements and international law, it said in a statement.”
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Thursday, September 24th 2009
“Chevron upped the ante Wednesday in its 16-year legal battle over allegations of environmental pollution in Ecuador and filed a claim against the government there for violating international trade law.”
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Wednesday, September 23rd 2009
“Chevron Corp. is stepping up its offensive in its long-running legal battle in Ecuador, suing Ecuador’s government under international trade law.
Chevron is the defendant in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit that seeks to hold the company responsible for environmental damage allegedly caused by Texaco Inc., which Chevron bought in 2001. Chevron has denied the allegations.
Seeking to protect itself from what it says is likely to be an adverse ruling in Ecuador, the California-based oil giant said Wednesday it had filed suit under the terms of a 1997 trade pact between the U.S. and Ecuador. The suit amounts to a request for arbitration through a process set up by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law to adjudicate disagreements.”
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Wednesday, September 23rd 2009
“Chevron Corp said it had filed an international arbitration claim against Ecuador, opening a new front in its defense against a $27 billion environmental damage lawsuit in Ecuadorean court.”
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Wednesday, September 23rd 2009
“Chevron Corp. on Wednesday filed suit against the government of Ecuador for trade violations, an effort to protect against a potentially negative ruling in a separate $27 billion suit over environmental damage. Chevron accuses Ecuador of “exploitation” for its pursuit of an ongoing lawsuit over environmental damage the plaintiffs allege Texaco caused in the Amazon rain forest between 1972 and 1990. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, acquired Texaco in 2001.”
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Tuesday, August 24th 2010
Reuters profiles the Chevron Ecuador case: A run-down court building that also houses the local casino in this Amazon jungle town is the unlikely venue for the largest environmental damages lawsuit ever tried. Read More »Tuesday, August 24th 2010
Reuters also features additional details of the Chevron Ecuador lawsuit: U.S.-based Chevron Corp (CVX.N) faces a $27 billion environmental damages lawsuit in Ecuador, a case that has already dragged on for years and could last many more if it gets bogged down in appeals. Read More »Friday, August 13th 2010
A new article on the Chevron Ecuador lawsuit: The story of Chevron in Ecuador already bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Dole in Nicaragua. A U.S. company persuades a U.S. judge to toss out an alien tort claim on forum non conveniens grounds. U.S. plaintiffs lawyers then seek jackpot damages in a Latin American court (while being lionized in a controversial documentary). The corporation discredits the Latin American court by returning to the U.S. courts and alleging fraud. In Dole's case, a judge in California state court found that some of the plaintiffs lawyers had misled the court. In the Chevron case, it appeared that the actor most clearly discredited was the Ecuadorian judge caught on film discussing damages with an outside party. But last week, as the Litigation Daily previously reported, Chevron's lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher filed a brief asserting that outtakes from the documentary Crude, turned over by the filmmaker in response to a Second Circuit discovery ruling, suggest that the plaintiffs lawyers themselves choreographed an "independent" expert's report recommending up to $27 billion in damages. Last year plaintiffs countered coverage of the judicial bias videotapes by attacking the motives and background of the American who secretly filmed the judge. Explaining the newly released footage will be more difficult. Based on what is known so far about the Crude outtakes, outrage seems appropriate. While the footage raises interesting questions of filmmaking ethics, what matters for the litigation is the apparent evidence of collusion between plaintiffs and court-appointed expert Richard Cabrera. Read More »
Wednesday, September 1st 2010
Discussion of the restrictions that Ecuador President Rafael Correa is placing on the media: Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua have passed new media laws—all of them aimed at clipping the wings of privately owned news sources—and the call for “social control of media” is viral among lefty groups. (It was unanimously endorsed, for instance, by participants at an August confab in Argentina of regional leftist parties—which now govern 11 Latin American countries—called the São Paulo Forum.) “The threat to freedom is all around,” says Amaury de Souza, a Brazilian political scientist. “And it’s growing.” Read More »Wednesday, September 1st 2010
This article discusses Ecuador's oil exports and imports of refined crude: Ecuador is one of Latin America’s largest oil exporters, with net oil exports estimated at 305,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2009. Read More »Wednesday, September 1st 2010
Ecuador signs second loan in two months with China: Ecuador and China signed on Tuesday a $1 billion loan deal as the Asian giant is pushing ahead with the policy of securing energy resources in Latin America and Africa. The fresh loan deal, which Ecuador's government signed in Beijing with the China Development Bank, comes just two months after Ecuador and the Export-Import Bank of China signed a $1.7 billion deal for financing a huge hydroelectric project in Ecuador. Read More »