A former Ecuadorean judge who claims sole authorship of the $19 billion pollution award behind Chevron Corp.’s sprawling New York racketeering lawsuit on Tuesday struggled to answer several questions from Chevron attorneys about factual elements of that judgment, which the oil giant contends was ghostwritten.
In his first day of testimony, former judge Nicholas Zambrano faced a string of pointed questions from Chevron attorney Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher aimed at demonstrating that Zambrano’s lack of familiarity with certain elements of the heavily disputed judgment undermines his claim that he wrote the decision on his own.
