Can Ecuador bring Chevron to justice?
Can Ecuador bring Chevron to justice?
A US appeals court may decide fate of a $9.5 billion fine imposed on the company for environmental damage
April 24, 2015 2:00AM ET
by Miguel Tinker Salas - @mtinkersalas
On Monday, judges in New York began hearing arguments in one of the biggest and longest-running environmental justice cases of all time. At stake is whether a developing country that happens to have oil can enforce its judgments against a multinational company. The results may tell Americans something about what the rule of law is worth in their own country.
In 1993 a group of public interest lawyers, working on behalf of indigenous people in eastern Ecuador filed a class action lawsuit against Texaco over millions of gallons of oil and toxic wastewater that it released into groundwater, rivers and streams. Texaco (which was acquired by Chevron in 2001) fought for nearly a decade to have the case tried in Ecuador, probably thinking that it would be easier to influence the outcome in a developing country. It was mistaken: In 2011 an Ecuadorean court found that Chevron was responsible for the pollution, and after appeals, the company was found liable for $9.5 billion in damages. Since Chevron has no assets in Ecuador, the plaintiffs were forced to sue in the United States and other countries with a Chevron presence to collect the judgment.
The case had enormous implications for the global oil industry. If poor, indigenous people could team up with environmental activist lawyers and win a legal judgment against a multinational corporation, the balance of power between Big Oil and its normally powerless victims might change forever. Although Chevron, valued at over $200 billion, didn’t need any help with legal expenses, it probably could have raised hundreds of millions from other oil companies hoping to maintain corporate dominance over local populations and national governments.
Having lost in Ecuador, Chevron brought the case to the U.S., where it went on the offensive and sued the plaintiff’s lead attorney, Steven Donzinger, and his legal team. Invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — a statute designed to prosecute organized crime — the corporation accused the indigenous plaintiffs and their lawyers of bribing an Ecuadorean judge.
More:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/4/can-ecuador-bring-chevron-to-justice.html
