Bungle in the Jungle: Big Oil fights dirty in the Amazon

Back in 1993, indigenous native and farmer communities in the Amazon opened a landmark case against oil giant Chevron for allegedly discharging billions of gallons of toxic waste into the streams and rivers of the Amazon between the years of 1964 and 1992.

According to most experts, Chevron’s nearly 3-decade-long substandard practices created the worst oil-related disaster on the planet, resulting in the utter decimation of various indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related health problems affecting thousands of people.

The original case was filed in New York, where a federal judge shifted the jurisdiction to Ecuador at Chevron’s request; coincidentally, the oil company has just recently filed 14 affidavits praising the fairness of Ecuador’s judicial system.

Regardless of their efforts, however, the Ecuadorian court found Chevron to be liable in the original case and imposed damages of up to $18 billion – of which it still has not paid.

This ruling obviously did not fly well for Chevron, who abruptly changed its tune and attacked Ecuador’s courts as “corrupt” while returning to New York to file a new lawsuit with New York federal district judge Lewis A. Kaplan earlier this year.

Thanks to their shift to Judge Kaplan, the plaintiffs – who had previously won the $18 billion judgment against the company in Ecuador –  are now being court-ruled to bend to the will of the oil giant. The court order requires the plaintiffs to disclose thousands of documents – including those in possession of interns who have worked on the lawsuit – over a one-day time period.

The tight time frame for the return of the subpoenas was planned by Chevron to make it virtually impossible to adequately contest them.

Sidestepping truth

According to an appeal by the plaintiffs, Chevron’s requests “are not aimed at discovering relevant evidence for use at trial but rather are propounded in an effort to deplete the Ecuadorian plaintiffs’ resources and their ability to prosecute the critical.”

This move by Chevron is a blatant attempt to deplete their small-time opposition’s already modest funds while – perhaps even worse – allow the New York federal district judge to determine on his own accord whether or not the oil company should even have to pay a single dollar on the foreign court’s ruling.

According to Kaplan, he alone will determine whether or not Ecuador’s entire judicial system even meets international standards. As Chevron sees it, Kaplan’s judgment against Ecuador – which by the way is a long-time trading partner of the United States and has regular democratic elections – would help it block international enforcement of the $18 billion Ecuador judgment.

Although Chevron has already stripped its assets from Ecuador and vowed to never pay the $18 billion, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs say they have a right to seek enforcement in any of dozens of countries where Chevron operates.
For them, this represents “judicial imperialism” at its worst; an attempt to exercise worldwide jurisdiction from the United States over a legal case in a foreign country.

Home-cooked bailout

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs have already filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals seeking Kaplan’s removal from the Ecuador matter due to his alleged open contempt for the Ecuadorians and their country’s judicial system, describing him as “Chevron’s single greatest ally in its eighteen-year effort to evade liability” and that his actions “threaten the credibility of the United States federal justice system both at home and abroad.”

“The world is closely watching this landmark case,” said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorians. “And what the world sees is an American company that fought for nine years to wrest jurisdiction from the American courts in favor of litigating the case in Ecuador, only to come running back to the United States for a preordained, home-cooked bailout when things did not go as well as planned in Ecuador.

“Worse yet, it sees a federal district court that is not just willing, but apparently determined, to overlook the fact that [Chevron] just spent the last eight years committing a series of outrageous abuses against the Ecuadorian court it swore to respect as it begged to move the case there.”

The case is expected to be back in court later this summer. For more information, visit www.chevrontoxico.com.