For a couple of years now we’ve been keeping tabs on the ongoing efforts by certain unscrupulous groups in Ecuador and their environmental and litigation minded partners in the United States to pick the pockets of energy industry leader Chevron to the tune of billions of dollars. The case has devolved from one where the plaintiffs appeared to simply be wrong to an ongoing river of evidence that this was fraud, plain and simple. Chevron has released a new video with some of the primary scientific experts in the case , previously employed by the plaintiffs, coming out and saying that the entire case was essentially fictional.
Steven Donziger and his team claim the $19 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador is based on “overwhelming scientific evidence”. But according to his own scientific experts, their so-called scientific evidence was completely fabricated. One by one, Donziger’s scientific experts have testified that when the science didn’t go their way, Donziger and his team simply made it up.
The video includes some of the key actors in this case providing the most unambiguous dismissals of the plaintiffs’ case imaginable. The original scientific report which supposedly provided damning evidence against Chevron carried the signature of Dr. Charles Calmbacher. In the video, we see him looking at the paperwork and delivering the following message.
I did not reach these conclusions and I did not write this report.
The “report” was allegedly prepared by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Steven Donziger (who we’ve written about before), who then simply attached Calmbacher’s name to it and submitted it.
Ann Maest and Doug Beltman were also brought in on Ecuador’s behalf to file reports supporting the plaintiffs. In April of this year, they jointly released a confessional with a new take on the situation.
I disavow any and all findings and conclusions in any of my reports and testimony on the Ecuador project.
Seriously? When you get caught with your pants down this blatantly it doesn’t seem like a simple, “Oops, my bad” should suffice. What of all the time and money which has been flushed into fighting this nonsense? Will nobody from Ecuador or Donziger’s office be held accountable for this?
In case you’re new to this case, you can find all of our previous coverage of the story here.