•Chevron lawyer Rodrigo Perez Pallares admitted during the Ecuador trial that the company deliberately discharged 15 billiongallons of toxic water into fresh water sources in the Amazon rainforest. The amount is an estimated 85 times more oil wastethan BP discharged into the Gulf.
•Chevron's dumping in Ecuador was done by design to increase profits. BP's spill – even though the result of gross negligence – was still an accident.
Another case involving Anadarko's recent settlement over 2,700 contaminated sites in the U.S. also underscores Chevron's inexcusable double standard. In that case, Anadarko inherited the polluted sites from Kerr McGee when it bought the company, just like Chevron inherited Texaco's pollution liabilities when the companies merged in 2001.
Like Chevron has done with Texaco, Anadarko tried to spin off the environmental liability into a separate shell company that had little capital. A U.S. bankruptcy judge rejected Anadarko's subterfuge and ordered it to clean the sites. In Ecuador, three layers of courts rejected Chevron's use of the same legal trick to evade liability.
But in Ecuador, according to Chevron, that amounts to a violation of "due process" and is an example of "fraud" against the company.
Watson and his army of lawyers have ruthlessly attacked Ecuador's government for not cleaning up their own contamination in Ecuador. Now we see that the U.S. government did not lift a finger for decades to address Kerr McGee's contamination – largely because the issue of liability was still being contested. In the end, Kerr McGee settled the matter for $5.6 billion, further underscoring how major polluters routinely pay out billions of dollars for their liabilities.
Unless you are Chevron.
Let's sum up.
In one country (Ecuador), a U.S. oil major has refused for almost 50 years to clean up its contamination, compensate its victims, or engage in meaningful settlement discussions with the affected communities. In another country (the United States), a British oil major put up $20 billion within days of its spill to compensate its victims and engaged in settlement discussions with lawyers for the victims that resulted in further liability.
We might also add that BP has put aside $40 billion in cash to deal with the Gulf spill. Chevron has put aside zero to pay off its Ecuador liability.
Watson and Chevron's Board of Directors owe the people of Ecuador – not to mention their own shareholders – an explanation for this thoroughly disparate treatment.
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