A new twist has emerged in the years-long legal battle between Ecuador and Chevron over pollution in the environs of the Lago Agrio oil field. The oil giant has alleged that a ruling which ordered it to pay US$9.5 billion in compensation was not written by presiding Judge Nicolás Zambrano, but instead by a legal team allied with President Rafael Correa. Read more>>
Perhaps the best example of Ecuador’s poor legal climate is an $18 billion judgment that was rendered against Chevron in 2011 by a court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, for alleged contamination resulting from crude oil production in the region. This ruling came in spite of the fact that Ecuador’s government attested a decade before that the company’s environmental remediation was satisfactory; yet, the country’s courts continue to provide U.S. trial lawyers with a forum for grandstanding. Read more>>
Kobre & Kim has won a third settlement against a litigation funding company for its client Chevron in the energy giant’s mammoth lawsuit with Ecuador over a fraudulent judgment relating to oil waste in the Amazon. Read more>>
“If you repeat a lie a thousand times it becomes the truth.” That is the motto that Steven Donziger, the U.S. lawyer who orchestrated a fraud and extortion scheme to target Chevron through sham litigation in Ecuador, confided to a member of his Ecuadorian legal team. Since then, one of this country’s most respected trial court judges has found that Donziger violated federal racketeering laws by committing multiple acts of mail and wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery of foreign officials, money laundering, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
For years, a San Francisco-based activist organization, Amazon Watch, has made Chevron the target of an unrelenting smear campaign based …
It was on the same day that “Mad Men” announced that it would split its final season in half that arbitrators in Chevron v. Ecuador split their latest decision in half in 2013. Appropriately, the arbitrators’ sequel came last week, during the lead-up to the show’s final episodes. But unlike “Mad Men,” we know that the latest arbitral ruling ends with a cliffhanger. Herewith, a guide to the next season of the world’s longest-running legal dramedy, which debuts April 20 with the split-screen airing of the Chevron v. Donziger appeal and the Chevron v. Ecuador arbitration trial. Read more>>
Chevron’s settlement agreement with James Russell DeLeon, the principal financial backer of the fraudulent case against Chevron in Ecuador, marks the 19th ally of Steven Donziger, the lawyer behind the lawsuit against the company, to abandon his scheme. Read more>>
The fallout continues from what is arguably the greatest legal fraud in history—the case against Chevron for allegedly polluting the Ecuador jungle. On Monday Chevron announced it has reached a settlement with James Russell DeLeon, a leading funder of the fraudulent lawsuit. Read more>>
Gibson Dunn’s energy group was at the center of key developments in 2014, including Chevron Corp.’s win in a suit over its environmental record in Ecuador and the Williams Cos. Inc.’s $50 billion merger with its pipeline unit, landing a spot among Law360’s Energy Groups of the Year. Read more>>
Gibson Dunn’s environmental practice group spent 2014 racking up huge wins for clients, from obtaining a finding that a $9.5 billion damages award against Chevron Corp. for alleged contamination of an Amazon oil field was gained through fraudulent means to securing the dismissal of key plaintiffs’ claims in toxic tort litigation against International Paper Co., earning the firm a place among Law360’s Environmental Practice Groups of the Year.
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Chevron has filed an appeal brief with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in support of its racketeering …