A Possible Overture From Ecuador in the Chevron Pollution Mess
One of the biggest environmental controversies brewing anywhere in the world right now concerns oil pollution in tiny Ecuador. A federal judge in New York is poised to rule in coming months on an audacious attempt by Chevron (CVX) to use American anti-racketeering law to snuff out a multibillion-dollar contamination judgment the company incurred in Ecuador in February 2011. Meanwhile, squads of plaintiffs’ lawyers are seeking to enforce the Ecuadorian verdict by grabbing Chevron assets in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil.
The far-flung legal war raises the question of what Ecuadorians think about the accusations and counter-accusations about the side-effects of industrialization in the Amazonian rainforest. After all, most of the benefits from oil production have flowed to Ecuador. (You read that correctly; we’ll come back to that point in a moment.) And all the nasty pollution has harmed the ecology and poor population near that country’s petroleum operations.
The other day I sat down with Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States, Nathalie Cely Suarez, an economist and career public servant. We spoke in English at Ecuador’s New York trade office, where I found her reviewing diplomatic papers, an afternoon cup of coffee steaming within easy reach.
Cely has an impressive grasp of the relevant history: Texaco’s drilling in the rainforest from the 1960s through the 1980s, Chevron’s acquisition of Texaco in 2001, litigation that began in the U.S. and in 2003 shifted to Ecuador, Chevron’s claims that it has been the victim of an extortionate conspiracy involving fabricated evidence and coercion, and the plaintiffs’ position that the company is exaggerating the quirks of the Ecuadorian legal system to distract from its liability (now valued at $9.5 billion).
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-04/a-possible-overture-from-ecuador-in-the-chevron-pollution-mess