Patton Boggs Surrenders to Chevron (Equador Pollution Case), Will Pay $15 Million
Source: Bloomberg
Chevron struck another blow in its campaign to undermine a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment it faces in Ecuador. Under tremendous pressure from the oil company, Patton Boggs, the powerful Washington law firm that once vowed to assure the enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment, instead withdrew today from the case.
In an extraordinary concession, Patton Boggs said it regretted its prior involvement in a lawsuit against Chevron, a legal action deemed by a federal judge in New York to have evolved into an extortion scheme aimed at the San Ramon (Calif.) oil company. Patton Boggs also agreed to provide Chevron with supportive documents and testimony and to pay the company $15 million as a tangible symbol of its abasement.
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The bizarre saga stems from a February 2011 judgment in an Ecuadorian trial court that Chevron is culpable for decades of oil contamination in that country. The liability verdict was upheld by Ecuador’s Supreme Court, but the $19 billion in damages was halved to $9.5 billion.
Chevron refused to pay, arguing that the architect of the judgment, New York plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Donziger, fabricated evidence, coerced Ecuadorian judges, and participated in the ghostwriting of supposedly neutral expert reports and the February 2011 ruling itself. Chevron formalized those allegations in a U.S. civil racketeering suit against Donziger that produced a March 2014 verdict against the plaintiffs’ lawyer. Donziger denies wrongdoing and has appealed. Meanwhile, he and other lawyers for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs have launched legal efforts to enforce the Ecuadorian judgment in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. Chevron has no assets to speak of in Ecuador.
Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-07/patton-boggs-surrenders-in-battle-with-chevron-agrees-to-pay-15-million
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- BP, Exxon, Gulf, Ashland, and all other motherfuckers out (I'm looking at you Canada and your goddamned tar sands) there who are destroying the planet for the rest of us. You stupid assholes, fuck you!
I hope I made my feelings clear on the matter.
K&R
