Chevron seeks $32 million in legal fees in Ecuador case

[Zorro]

Chevron Corp is seeking $32.3 million in legal fees from Steven Donziger and others who this month who were found by a judge to have used fraud to obtain a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron in Ecuador.

In a filing late on Tuesday, Chevron asked a federal court in New York to order Donziger, a Harvard-educated lawyer, to reimburse it for the cost of bringing its racketeering case against him.

Morgan Crinklaw, a spokesman for Chevron, said the company was attempting to hold Donziger accountable for bringing what he called a fraudulent case in Ecuador.

A lawyer for Donziger, Deepak Gupta, said Chevron's "eye-popping" fee request was a "transparent attempt" to intimidate anyone who might be thinking of suing the company for wrongdoing.

http://news.yahoo.com/chevron-seeks-32-million-legal-fees-ecuador-case-181325384--finance.html

[COLGATE4]

1. I have no way of telling whether the figure of

$M32,3 is excessive or not, but I will note that even the easiest of lawsuits generates an incredible amount of costs to litigate through verdict and collection. It may be a fairly sustainable number.