Chevron Threatened Ecuador Judge With Prison Time If He Failed to Grant Their Motions, Court Papers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Amazon Defense Coalition

Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Threatened Ecuador Judge With Prison Time If He Failed to Grant Their Motions, Court Papers Say
On Eve of Judgment, Chevron Resorting to Intimidation Tactics

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador, Feb. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Chevron's lawyers in Ecuador have threatened the trial judge overseeing the historic environmental trial where the company faces a potential judgment in the billions of dollars, according to court papers made available by the plaintiffs.

In a series of recent legal papers, Chevron lawyers Enrique Carbajal and Alberto Racines threatened trial Judge Nicolas Zambrano with criminal sanctions and prison if he failed to grant their motions asking for a dismissal of the case, which has been on trial since 2003 in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio. The threats were clearly outlined in motions signed by the two lawyers and submitted to the court, said Pablo Fajardo, the Ecuadorian lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"Chevron's threat to the judge is another example of its abuse of the rule of law and its desperation to avoid a judgment," said Fajardo, who represents an estimated 30,000 Ecuadorians who brought the lawsuit.

Judge Zambrano recently sanctioned and fined Racines approximately $1,600 for repeatedly filing the same motions in an effort to delay the Ecuador trial. A third Chevron lawyer in Ecuador – Patricio Campuzano – was sanctioned for the same reason in 2009. Also that same year, Racines exploded in anger at a trial testing site when oil was found at one of Chevron's so-called "remediated" sites.



Read more: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amazon-defense-coalition-chevron-threatened-ecuador-judge-with-prison-time-if-he-failed-to-grant-their-motions-court-papers-say-115208834.html

[Initech]

1. These fucking companies get way too much free reign. Time to put 'em on a leash.

[Demeter]

2. They wrote it down on paper?

Either totally arrogant, or totally moronic. Maybe both.

[Gato Moteado]

3. can we take glenn beck, rush limbaugh, coulter, hannity, o'reilly and......

....all the registered members of the free republic and put depleted uranium helmets on them all and fire them out of cannons pointed at chevron's headquarters? maybe aim a few at monsanto while we're at it?

please?

[EC]

4. How can an oil company threaten to put anyone in jail?

Do they own the law down there?

[primavera]

10. I wonder about that too

Maybe they're more honest about allowing corporations to run their legal system down their without forcing them to go through the intermediaries of lobbyists like we do here.

[Citizen Worker]

5. Any doubt remain on who or what runs the world? Shouldn't be.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. Hey Ecuadorians can walk like Egyptians

[goforit]

7. Tyranny of the world by corporations.

[gratuitous]

8. Hey, isn't that where Condoleezza Rice used to draw a paycheck?

Now she draws pay from Stanford University. They must be very proud in Palo Alto.

[davidinalameda]

9. you do realize that this is a press release

and not a news article

Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or [e-mail]

[Peace Patriot]

11. LOL! Guess who moved the case to Ecuador "praising Ecuador's court system," back in 1000 A.D.?

"The case was moved from U.S. federal court at Chevron's request after Chevron filed 14 sworn affidavits praising Ecuador's court system."!

--

This case has been going on for a very long time--almost two decades--due to Chevron's delaying tactics. It was originally filed in the U.S. To try to get out of it then, Chevron requested that the case be moved to Ecuador (o get it dismissed in the U.S. court), thinking it would go away. They filed numerous comments with the U.S. court praising Ecuador's court system. And the U.S. judge made them promise to abide by Ecuadoran law. Chevron figured the plaintiffs--very poor Indigenous tribespeople whose lives and livelihoods had been profoundly harmed--would give up. A lone, self-educated Indigenous lawyer, Pablo Fajardo--he himself and his brothers and sisters had grown up drinking oily water and taking oily showers--picked up the ball in Ecuador. He was so poor he didn't even have a fax machine. He diligently filed motions and kept it going, on behalf of the 30,000 poor Indigenous plaintiffs--against banks of well-heeled corporate law firms. Another brave man, Luis Yanza, had organized the tribal community.

Here is Pablo Fajardo's personal account:
http://www.harvardilj.org/2010/08/online_51_fajardo_byrne/
He and Luis Yanza received the Goldman Environmental Prize for their work on this case.
http://www.goldmanprize.org/2008/centralsouthamerica

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PHOTOS of Chevron's pollution: http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2011/02/chevrons-corporate-bullying.html

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And here is an excellent account of lawsuit history and recent developments:

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"After more than 17 years of litigation, the monumental class action against oil giant Chevron (formerly Texaco) for widespread environmental devastation in the Ecuadorian Amazon is nearing an end. In December 2010, the judge presiding over the trial in Ecuador announced the formal close to the evidentiary phase, and a verdict is widely expected to be delivered by the Fall of 2011. In January, both Chevron and the plaintiffs filed their final arguments in the case.

"In an award-winning 60 Minutes report on the case, a Chevron spokesperson admitted that the company expects an adverse judgment in Ecuador. Mountains of evidence—including thousands of contamination samples taken by Chevron—prove the company is responsible for oil contamination in the rainforest region of northeastern Ecuador called the Oriente. In April 2008, a court- appointed expert released a report recommending that Chevron pay $27.3 billion in damages. It's useful to compare this figure with estimates of BP's liability for the Gulf Spill, which some analysts suggest could exceed $50 billion, for the estimated 185 million gallons of crude spilled. Over the course of its operations, it is estimated that Texaco spilled or deliberately dumped the equivalent of 345 million gallons of crude in Ecuador's rainforest.

"Expecting to be hit with a massive verdict against the company in Ecuador, Chevron has poured immense resources into a scorched- earth legal and public relations strategy designed to exhaust the plaintiffs' resources, portray the case and the courts as corrupt, and lay a basis for evading enforcement of the judgment. Instead of dealing with the indisputable evidence of its responsibility, the company has instead launched a strategy of intimidation, distraction, and delay. There are major implications to Chevron's latest offensive, not only for Ecuador's indigenous people and campesino communities, but also for international human rights and environmental law, and movements for corporate accountability.

This briefing paper provides a brief background on this historic legal battle, followed by an outline of some of Chevron's strategies to evade accountability for one of the world's worst ecological disasters."

(MORE)

http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0121-understanding-recent-developments-in-the-landmark-chevron-ecuador-case.html

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