Judge Kaplan said during a hearing on 8 February 2011: “We are dealing here with a company of considerable importance to our economy that employs thousands all over the world, that supplies a group of commodities, gasoline, heating oil, other fuels and lubricants on which every one of us depends every single day. According to an interview with Donziger, Guerra later admitted lying under oath in a separate arbitration, but Judge Kaplan upheld his verdict, and Donziger was disbarred from practising law. This ruling relied on the testimony of Alberto Guerra, a defrocked Ecuadorian judge, whom Chevron moved to the United States and gave him a monthly stipend 20 times of his former salary. He ruled that Donziger won in the Ecuadorian court by “corrupt means”. The case was presided over by New York Judge Lewis A. Instead, it went for Donziger, filing a suit against him for his attempt to “extort” the company. ![]() To this day, Chevron has not paid a single cent for the cleanup. and then we’ll fight it out on the ice", breaking its previous promise to accept the results of the trial. What was Chevron’s reaction? It moved out all assets from the country, and vowed to "fight until hell freezes over. Under President Rafael Correa (first elected in 2006), Ecuador’s judiciary became far less subservient to multinationals. Chevron appealed, but the ruling was upheld, although the damages were reduced to $9.5 billion.įair.org describes the backgound to the rulings the following way: “Economic collapse in 1999 led to massive political upheaval in Ecuador the country had seven presidents from 1996 until 2006. It was found guilty in 2011, and was ordered to pay $18 billion in damages to the plaintiffs. Given that Chevron’s annual revenue at the time was higher than the entire GDP of Ecuador, it’s easy to see why the company would prefer to have their trial there. The US courts ruled in Chevron’s favor, under the condition that Chevron would accept the verdict by the courts there. However, in 2001, Chevron bought Texaco, and insisted that the responsibility for the cleanup lay with Petroecuador – despite Texaco already admitting to dumping toxic waste in the area for decades.Ĭhevron fought for the lawsuit to be moved to Ecuador. In 1993, Steven Donziger and other attorneys sued Texaco in New York on the behalf of over 30,000 farmers and indigenous people living in the Amazon. Various findings quote the excess rates of cancer at either 130% higher, or 30 times higher than the rest of the country. The website claims that Texaco deliberately dumped over 16 billion gallons of toxic waste, spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in open pits in the forest, to save about $3 per barrel.įor the local indigenous population, so the website reports, that meant of numerous types of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, deaths from poisoning, and skin diseases. ![]() The story begins in the 60s, when Texaco, in partnership with Petroecuador, started drilling for oil in the rainforest. Steven Donziger is an American human rights lawyer who took on Chevron over oil waste in the Amazon.
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