Chevron Evades Justice in Ecuador Pollution Case

[GoLeft TV]

From Ring of Fire:

On Tuesday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York prohibited the enforcement of a $9.5 billion Amazon rainforest pollution judgment against oil giant Chevron Corporation. Kaplan ruled that the judgment was a product of fraud on behalf of Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their attorney Steven Donziger.

According to Amazon Watch, the decision “underscores the threat that well-financed corporations pose to justice and the rule of law with their ability to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to attack victims and their allies.”

The judgment would have compensated Ecuadorians for Chevron predecessor Texaco’s deliberate dumping of more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater in the Amazon. Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2011, drilled for oil in the Amazon rainforest and deliberately dumped billions of gallons of highly toxic sludge into unlined, open-air pits that have seeped into streams and rivers, polluting the means of subsistence for local Ecuadorians.

You can read the full article here at Ring of Fire.

[COLGATE4]

1. In other words, a court invalidating a judgment

because of fraud on the part of the Plaintiffs means that the Defendant 'evaded justice'? Fascinating legal theory.

[Nihil]

2. The judgement of a corrupt US court is helping a corrupt US oil company to evade justice.

No change there then.

[COLGATE4]

4. What conceivable evidence do you have to

assert that the court that decided this case is, as you say "corrupt". That's a very serious charge. I assume you are prepared to substantiate it.

[SkatmanRoth]

3. What the oil companines did to the Amazon is not in dispute

Texaco admitted to dumping waste that found its way into streams and the river. That is a fact.

The reason Chevron gets to walk is the Ecuadorian clients hired a hot-shot lawyer who was more interested in advancing his own career than in achieving justice in a court of law. It was a winnable court case, but Steven Donziger greased the skids to make the case about his grandiose legal expertise and ended up poisoning the proceedings.

Judge Kaplan thought better of ruling on a case slanted by unethical evidence proffered by Donziger. The judge threw the case out and thus Chevron walks.