Reuters – Can Ecuadorean plaintiffs keep funding case against Chevron?

There was a very interesting paragraph near the end of Burford Capital’s announcement Monday that it has acquired a British litigation insurance provider. Burford, you may recall, is the litigation-finance company that in November 2010 made a controversial $4 million investment in the Ecuadorean litigation accusing Chevron of despoiling the Lago Agrio region of the Amazonian rainforest. Burford put up the money to pay the plaintiffs’ new lawyers at Patton Boggs after Chevron’s counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher succeeded in driving their longtime lawyer, Steven Donziger, out of the litigation.

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