by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 10, 2012 | Lobbying, Toxification
By Jeff Gray / The Globe and Mail
Chevron Corp. has lost a bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court consider its call for a worldwide ban on attempts to collect on a controversial $19-billion (U.S.) environmental judgment levelled against the company in Ecuador.
The decision comes with lawyers in Canada poised to battle in a Toronto courtroom next month over an attempt by the Ecuadorean plaintiffs to seize Chevron’s considerable Canadian assets to cover at least part of the massive judgment – a judgment the oil giant dismisses as fraudulent.
In the latest twist in a tangled legal saga, Chevron was trying to revive a preliminary injunction issued last year by a federal judge in New York. That injunction was later overturned on appeal. It purported to block the plaintiffs and their lawyers from trying to enforce the 2011 Ecuadorean court ruling not just in the U.S., but anywhere outside of Ecuador.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to hear the case. It issued no reasons, as is customary, leaving the appeal court decision that quashed the injunction in place.
The news comes as lawyers for the plaintiffs – a group of villagers in the Amazon rainforest – have stepped up their campaign to force the oil company to pay for environmental damage from oil pollution in the Lago Agrio area of Ecudaor.
Chevron, based in San Ramon, Calif., has said it has virtually no assets remaining in Ecuador, and the plaintiffs have vowed to chase the company’s assets elsewhere. Their first stop, earlier this year, was Canada.
In May, they announced they had retained prominent Toronto lawyer Alan Lenczner, of Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP, to try to have the judgment recognized by the Ontario Superior Court and force Chevron to fork over its Canadian assets, which include oil sands holdings. The plaintiffs have also filed a similar collection effort in Brazil.
In sprawling litigation in the United States, both sides have accused each of fraud and bribery in connection with the Ecuadorean ruling, allegations they both deny.
Chevron said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement that the company was disappointed with the decision but “will continue to defend against the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ attempts to enforce the fraudulent Ecuadorean judgment, and to further expose their misconduct in our pending [litigation] in New York and other proceedings.”
The plaintiffs’ say the ruling is the latest in a series of defeats for Chevron in U.S. courts.
“Chevron’s latest loss before the Supreme Court is an example of the company’s increasingly futile battle to avoid paying its legal obligations in Ecuador,” Aaron Marr Page, a lawyer for the Ecuadoreans, was quoted as saying in an e-mailed statement.
Read more from The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/chevron-loses-bid-to-have-ecuador-case-heard-by-us-supreme-court/article4599707/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 18, 2012 | Lobbying, Toxification
By Amazon Defense Coalition
A new financial analysis has found that Chevron’s $18 billion Ecuador environmental liability poses a threat of “irreparable damage” to the oil major’s global operations if the plaintiffs make good on their promise to launch legal actions to enforce the judgment in countries where Chevron has billions of dollars in assets.
The report, by social investment analyst Simon Billenness, notes that the long-running case (Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco) “is reaching its most risky phase” for Chevron after an appeals court in Ecuador upheld the judgment in January and rendered it immediately enforceable. The report notes that Chevron’s defenses have been “severely compromised” because of a separate ruling by a New York federal appellate court that vacated a preliminary injunction purporting to bar worldwide enforcement of the judgment.
The Billenness Report also notes that Chevron has yet to disclose in its public filings that its own comptroller, Rex Mitchell, quietly submitted a sworn affidavit to U.S. federal court that concluded any enforcement of the judgment will cause “irreparable damage” to the company. Chevron has been trying to downplay the risk posed by the judgment in its public filings and press releases, concluded Billenness in the report, titled An Analysis of the Financial and Operational Risks to the Chevron Corporation from Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco.
“In sworn legal statements, Chevron has admitted that the company faces ‘irreparable injury’ to [its] business relationships’ [from any enforcement of the Ecuador case] yet has consistently refused to fully characterize these risks to its shareholders,” he wrote in the report. “Shareholders are rightly questioning whether the board and management are fulfilling their fiduciary duties to properly manage the significant risks to the company’s business and value.”
The report also concluded “the enormous breadth of Chevron’s global business operations makes the company particularly vulnerable to enforcement. There are many jurisdictions around the world in which the plaintiffs could seek court recognition and enforcement of the judgment, including many where Chevron has substantial reserves and that are of strategic importance.”
Key findings of the Billenness report include:
- The Ecuador judgment poses serious risks to Chevron’s worldwide operations, with the possibility of asset attachments and loss of social license to operate in new areas and markets;
- Chevron’s principal legal defenses against enforcement have either been severely compromised or have failed. These include the reversal of a preliminary injunction barring enforcement and the rejection by Ecuador’s government of a private investment arbitration that tried to halt the litigation;
- Chevron’s shareholders are stepping up calls for more transparent disclosure of the Ecuador liability, leading to increased pressure on management; and
- Chevron risks violating securities laws for withholding material information from shareholders.
Shareholders have been speaking out against Chevron management on the Ecuador issue for some time.
Last year, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli blasted the company for “doing grave reputational damage” to itself by pursuing more legal proceedings “that only delay the inevitable…it’s time to face reality…[t]he entire case is looming like a hammer over shareholders’ heads.” And in a letter last May, several prominent institutional investors called on Chevron “to fully disclose … the risks to its operations and business from the potential enforcement” of the Ecuador judgment.
Chevron refused to even acknowledge or answer either the investor letter, according to the shareholders.
The plaintiffs have said they plan to enforce the judgment in various countries, but they have not announced any specifics other than to say Venezuela and Panama are being considered. Chevron has billions of dollars of assets in Australia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Brazil, and Venezuela and operates in dozens of countries around the world, said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.
Billenness specializes in analyzing how environmental, social, and governance factors pose risks to shareholders. He has worked as an analyst and advisor to Trillium Asset Management and the Office of Investment of the AFL-CIO. He is a member of the U.S. Social Investment Forum and consults with entities that focus on social investing.
From Chevron Toxico: http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0517-chevron-faces-irreparable-damage-from-18-billion-judgment.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 15, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Toxification
By Amazon Defense Coalition
A lead Chevron lawyer has made the preposterous claim that the 30,000 Ecuadorian victims of the oil giant’s contamination are “irrelevant” to the court case that led to an $18 billion judgment against the company.
Doak Bishop, a Chevron lawyer from the American firm King & Spalding, said the following before a panel of international investment arbitrators on February 15th:
“The plaintiffs are really irrelevant. They always were irrelevant. There were never any real parties in interest in this case. The plaintiff’s lawyers have no clients… There will be no prejudice to [the rainforest communities] or any individual by holding up enforcement of the judgment.”
Meanwhile, the Huffington Post published over a dozen photos of Ecuadorians who have died or have severe medical problems resulting from Chevron’s contamination. See here for photos, taken by Lou Dematteis.
By arguing that no Ecuadorians had been harmed or were in danger of being harmed, Bishop was trying to convince the panel of arbitrators that they should block the Ecuadorians from enforcing their judgment against Chevron in other countries, a strategy that has failed for multiple reasons. See here.
Chevron has a long history of trying to dehumanize the Ecuadorians by denying their very existence or by belittling their culture, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the communities.
In 2010, Chevron tried to claim the signatures of 20 of the 48 named plaintiffs in the lawsuit had been forged by their attorneys. The charge was quickly rebutted after the plaintiffs appeared before a public notary to affirm their signatures were legitimate. See here. Chevron engineers also belittled Ecuadorian indigenous leaders by making them wear Western clothes and suggesting that oil-laden streams were actually full of vitamins, according to published reports.
The existence and relevance of the Ecuadorians has been affirmed by multiple independent journalists, including those working for 60 Minutes, The Sunday Night Show in Australia, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The $18 billion damage award, levied by an Ecuador court, will be used to clean up Chevron’s deliberate contamination of the rainforest and provide clean drinking water and health care to the residents of the company’s former concession area. The damage decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer, according to evidence relied on by the court in issuing the judgment. See this video for more information.
Chevron, under the Texaco brand, operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992. Chevron admitted dumping 16 billion gallons of toxic drilling fluids directly into waterways and streams relied on by local residents for their drinking water.
From PR Newswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chevron-lawyer-claims-that-victims-of-rainforest-contamination-are-irrelevant—-amazon-defense-coalition-147441865.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 1, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy
By Sea Turtle Restoration Project
The first ever recorded hybrid hawksbill sea turtle found in Australia nested this season at James Price Point, site of the proposed natural gas refinery in the Kimberley of Western Australia. The rare sea turtle was discovered during an independent survey of marine turtles at James Price Point conducted to provide more accurate and comprehensive science than the oil-industry funded studies done to date.
The findings from the recent sea turtle study were released today, casting further doubts over the scientific integrity of the W.A. Government’s environmental impact assessment for the James Price Point gas hub.
SeaTurtles.org reported the nesting of the sea turtle in December and posted a video of the unusual sea turtle with the details here. Now the hybrid nature of the turtle has been confirmed. We will post the full sea turtle study as soon as we get it!
The peer-reviewed study into marine turtle nesting in the James Price Point area led by University of Melbourne marine biologist Malcolm Lindsay found 14 turtle nests and 38 false crawls over the 2011/2012 nesting season, including the first ever recorded hawksbill hybrid in Australia.
The vast majority of nesting activity was concentrated in a 6 kilometer strip of coastline directly adjacent to the proposed natural gas refinery. As a consequence, the nesting habitat will be heavily impacted by the proposed gas refinery and associated marine facilities and pipeline.
In contrast, the marine turtle nesting study commissioned for the Western Australian Department of State Development on behalf of the joint venture partners Woodside Petroleum, Chevron, Shell, BP and BHP Billiton found only one ‘old’ nest and three false crawls. The authors of the independent report claim that the government’s study was inadequate and poorly designed. The government study surveyed only 12 percent of the coastline most threatened by the precinct, overlooking the significant 6km strip of important nesting habitat.
One of the authors, marine biologist Madeline Goddard commented:
“We understand that these projects require difficult weighing up of impacts to environment and aboriginal culture versus perceived jobs and royalties, we would hope that those difficult judgements would be well informed. That is not occurring with the science involved here.”
Traditional Goolarabooloo elder, Phillip Roe, commented yesterday:
“[W.A. Premier] Barnett can try to paint James Price Point as insignificant, but we know that there are dinosaur footprints, bilbies, turtle nests, whales, songlines, registered sacred sites all here, this is a sacred site worth protecting for all Australians, black or white.”
“The hybrid hawksbill is exciting news, but even more so is the science that supports local knowledge that James Price Point is important to sea turtles,” said Teri Shore, Program Director at SeaTurtles.org in California. Shore has provided expert comments and testimony on the environmental analysis of the Browse Basin natural gas projects. She has traveled to the Kimberley to help monitor flatback nesting beaches and lend support to local activists striving to halt the fossil fuel expansion.
All three species found in the study are nationally listed as threatened and any nesting population is considered significant by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority due to the heavy impacts that have occurred and the international significance of Northern Australia’s turtle populations.
The new sea turtle findings add additional scientific doubts to the integrity of the Strategic Assessment Report for the Browse Basin Gas Refinery proposed for James Price Point.
In July, a Queensland palaeontologist documented dinosaur trackways of international significance at James Price Point that were overlooked by the government studies.
Another significant oversight was revealed in August, when an ecological survey found a breeding population of the nationally threatened Bilby at the site.
The cetacean research group of Macquarie University recently released a damning public submission on the Strategic Assessment Report, remarking that they had “little confidence in the scientific integrity of the report and … conclusions reached within.”
From Sea Turtle Restoration Project:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 18, 2012 | The Problem: Civilization
By Agence France-Presse
Indonesia on Saturday accused five Chevron employees of being involved in a scam to set up a fictitious green project that lost the state some $270 million, a charge denied by the US oil giant.
“The Attorney-General’s Office (AGO) has named seven suspects, five of whom are from Chevron,” the office said in a statement on its website.
“Provisional estimates show losses of around $270 million,” it said, adding the project appeared to be fictitious. But Chevron denied the allegations, saying that the land restoration project was “up and running.”
The attorney-general did not disclose the nationalities of the Chevron suspects.
The other two suspects were from government agency, the Indonesian Upstream Oil and Gas Agency, and had been questioned, said the AGO.
The case centres on a project on Sumatra island, in which Chevron’s Indonesian subsidiary was to clean up soil contaminated by its drilling activities.
Under a government programme, Chevron would be reimbursed for the work by the oil and gas agency.
According to Chevron, it paid two companies to carry out the project, but investigators said they believed the land restoration was never carried out.
The two companies — Green Planet Indonesia and Sumigita Jaya — did not meet technical classifications or hold the right certificates to engage in land restoration, according to the AGO statement.
“The two companies are listed as general companies or contractors. It seems that the project is fictitious, that no work has been done in the area,” the statement said.
Chevron Pacific Indonesia denied the allegations.
“What we know is that the two companies meet the regulations we’re aware of,” company spokesman Yanto Sianipar told AFP.
“We are working on eight small sites that are around 200 metres by 150 metres each, and we have been working on the project for years now.”
The company says it is the largest producer of crude oil in Indonesia, recording an average daily production of 477,000 barrels in 2010.
Chevron is facing enormous fines for environmental destruction in Latin America, where it is challenging a landmark court order in Ecuador and could face fines from the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro for a November oil spill.
From Google News:
