Chevron's Outlandish Fraud Charges Deprive Ecuadorians of Justice

[Judi Lynn]

Chevron's Outlandish Fraud Charges Deprive Ecuadorians of Justice
By Michael Busch, March 20, 2011



Just weeks after an Ecuadoran court handed down its landmark decision against American multinational Chevron, the oil giant has filed an appeal to prevent having to pay billions in environmental damages wrought in the Amazonian rain forest. The court had ruled that Chevron pay a $9.5 billion fine for the destruction Texaco—which merged with Chevron in 2001—inflicted on the Amazon through its operations, a decision the company dismissed as corrupt. In a statement released last Friday, Chevron reported that it’s prepared to demonstrate “the pattern of fraud by the plaintiffs’ lawyers, supporters and others that has corrupted the trial, as well as the numerous legal and factual defects in the judgment.”

The appeal comes as no surprise. Chevron moved immediately before the verdict last month to initiate proceedings in The Hague designed to block the enforcement of any ruling against the company and extend arbitration. The oil multinational also filed papers in the United States to affect a similar outcome and, according to the BBC, accused “the claimants and lawyers in the case of racketeering, tampering with witnesses and obstructing justice.”

Whatever the result, Chevron’s challenge spells the indefinite suspension of justice for local Ecuadorians suffering decades-old environmental and human rights abuses.

The roots of the case can be traced back decades. Texaco, now owned by Chevron, first prospected for oil in the Amazon in 1964, quickly finding enormous reserves and contracting with national oil companies to extract their find. In the process, the multinational reportedly dumped nearly 20 billion gallons of toxic sludge in the jungle and was responsible for another 16 billion gallons of oil spilled over the course of its twenty-five year presence in the country. The damage sustained was extensive, poisoning the region’s soil and water and, according to plaintiffs in the case, causing a spiking rise in cancer deaths and birth defects. In 1993, lawyers representing a group of 30,000 affected Ecuadorans brought suit against Chevron in a US court to seek damages.

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