Oil polluters should be held responsible for their acts. At the same time, bribery, fraud, withholding and fabricating evidence must also not be allowed to stand
After the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute the case, Judge Kaplan took the rare step of appointing a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, to prosecute Mr. Donziger in the name of the U.S. government
> After the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute the case, Judge Kaplan took the rare step of appointing a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, to prosecute Mr. Donziger in the name of the U.S. government.
So the real problem here is people not reading the article, jumping to conclusions, and spreading misinformation in the comments (on HN?!). And probably the SDNY being too biased to enforce the law against a lawyer who cheated in a case against an oil company. Anyone who's been following the SDNY in the news for a while shouldn't be surprised about that.
> Kaplan has been accused of displaying a pro-corporate bias in the case.[12] At the hearing, Alberto Guerra, a former Ecuadorian judge, testified for Chevron, claiming Donziger bribed him and others to win the case by fraud. Guerra's testimony was cited by Kaplan as a key factor in his decision. In 2015, Guerra claimed his testimony against Donziger had been largely a lie.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_A._Kaplan#Chevron_vs_Don...
interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc
> In 2018, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that the $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador was marked by fraud and corruption and "should not be recognised or enforced by the courts of other States."[18][19][20] The amount Ecuador must pay to Chevron to compensate for damages is yet to be determined. The award found that Ecuador violated its obligations under international treaties, investment agreements and international law. The Court of Arbitration's findings of fraudulent activities included that the evidence placed before the Court is "the most thorough documentary, video, and testimonial proof of fraud ever put before an arbitral tribunal", that the plaintiffs championed by the film actually were engaged in blackmail and bribery of Ecuadorian judges. Their efforts triggered an order to appoint an "expert" friendly to the plaintiffs, that Ecuadorian government prosecutors "actively cooperated" with the plaintiffs, that the plaintiffs bribed the "experts" and ghostwrote their report and that the plaintiffs paid a retired judge to draft the acting judge's orders—and that the same judge solicited bribes that Chevron refused to pay.
Donzinger was disbarred for his actionns:
> In 2014, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in Ecuador was invalid because Donziger had achieved it through offenses against legal ethics, including racketeering, extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, judicial bribery, coercion, witness tampering, and arranging for expert's reports to be ghostwritten
Chevron is certainly not the world's nicest company (to put it kindly) but why should anybody lose sleep over a lawyer who a US court found engaged in illegal behavior to shake Chevron down? If anything, Donzinger is lucky that he wasn't prosecuted by the Southern District of New York.
The amount of conflicting information on the Donziger case is quite staggering but maybe quite natural given that there is so much money at stake.
EDIT: updated to quote from and link to original working group document.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Se...
https://www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecu...
If you actually are interested in understanding the situation I would encourage you to take a deep breath clear your mind of preconceptions and read it. In the real world every situation is not Black and White; Good vs. Evil, sometimes everyone involved in a situation is a scumbag.
It's entirely possible that both sides here are wrong, just in different ways. If you don't like a ruling you can appeal, but simply defying the court is never a good look and it doesn't normally work out well for any lawyer who tries it.
This was not a “flimsy” case.
"The Working Group recalls that it is inherent to the proper exercise of judicial power that it be exercised by an authority that is independent, objective and impartial in relation to the issues dealt with, as asserted by the Human Rights Committee in relation to article 9 (3) of the Covenant. In the present case, the Working Group is of the view that Judge P did not act in a manner which was independent, objective and impartial in relation to Mr. Donziger’s case. Consequently, the Working Group concludes that the imposition of pretrial detention upon Mr. Donziger was in violation of article 9 (3) of the Covenant. "
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Se...
But then I must admit, that I do not have a very high opinion of "arbitration courts" in general, as often they seem to have various conflicts of interests with regards to how they earn money by being paid by parties bringing the cases (i.e. deciding against the interests of a party which usually provides high-income cases, would risk the court's own financing).
The court was really, really pissed off with Donziger for ignoring it for 7 years. DA doesn’t care about contempt of court for a measly 6mo sentence. Don’t piss off the court!
There is no precedent to support Kaplan or Preska not recusing themselves, or at least letting the legal procedures as written play out (i.e. random assignment of a judge)
Nevertheless, the alleged “evidence” of such a bribe is verifiably traced itself to… a bribe, by Chevron. For a case brought by an official and presided over by an US judge who accept bribes (sorry, lobbyist money) from… Chevron.
From a comment above:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawy... > In one of the stranger episodes in this saga, Chevron relocated Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian judge, and his family to the US, paid for his health insurance and a car while meeting with him more than 50 times before he provided testimony that Donziger discussed the bribe with him at a Quito restaurant. Guerra has since admitted that his testimony was exaggerated in parts, untrue in others.
What is this part referring to?
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/loretta-preska
This is a tweet from Donzinger himself, so obviously don't take it at face value if you don't want to, but this provides a good jumping off point for further research:
https://twitter.com/sdonziger/status/1376676895001997312?lan...
I guess by your logic the judge also shouldn’t be pissed off if you start blasting music in the courtroom?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger#Kaplan's_2014_...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witness...
* "Guerra on many occasions has acted deceitfully and broken the law […] but that does not necessarily mean that it should be disregarded wholesale."*
The star witness was playing both sides. It’s hard to take his word on anything. This was a judgement call. The judge decided that the evidence brought-forth was substantial enough in nature.
The case was already active before Donzinger and Chevron had already successfully bribed its way out of it.
Also note that the conviction, while ruled "fraudulent", was not overturned.
The judge who convicted Donzinger has requested him to hand over his laptop and phone to Chevron, obviously in an attempt to further discredit him. This is a poor imitation of justice, which should taint your blind trust in US courts.
Chevron was in Ecuador through a subsidiary that had a partnership with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, which owned the majority (62.5%) of the partnership. Chevron's subsidiary completed environmental remediation required by the Ecuadorian government and signed a settlement agreement with the government in 1995 releasing it from all environmental claims.
Oil extraction is an ugly, dirty business, and it's not uncommon for countries like Ecuador to sacrifice the health of their citizens so that state-owned oil companies and their international partners can profit, but given the facts above, maybe the Ecuadorians should look to their government and state-owned oil company for recourse?
> The case was already active before Donzinger and Chevron had already successfully bribed its way out of it.
That's a big claim. Any evidence to back it up?
> Also note that the conviction, while ruled "fraudulent", was not overturned.
Why would you expect a court in a banana republic plagued by corruption to overturn a fraudulent judgment?
> The judge who convicted Donzinger has requested him to hand over his laptop and phone to Chevron, obviously in an attempt to further discredit him.
No, he was ordered to turn over his devices so that Chevron could locate his assets. This sort of thing happens when you lose in court and the opposing party wants to collect on a damages award.
There was a reason the trial was held in Ecuador only - Chevron insisted that it would be held there. That plan kind of backfired but now they insist on the corruption in Ecuador to claim the judgment is null. Make of that what you wish.
> No, he was ordered to turn over his devices so that Chevron could locate his assets. This sort of thing happens when you lose in court and the opposing party wants to collect on a damages award.
Are you saying that Chevron, a multinational making billions of dollars in profit every year, collected a lawyer's laptop and phone in order to locate and maybe sell his vacation house in Vermont or whatever for a few hundred thousand dollars? Don't be ridiculous. I am not sure he would care, his life was destroyed enough anyway (like the lives of the thousand of Ecuadorians living with environmental damage).
> Not to worry about Chevron, because they did not give a single cent of the 9.5B$ to the Ecuador government, or indigenous communities who got toxic waste dumped in their drinking water, or Ecuadorians who discovered oil pools on their property. 30'000 people are represented in that case, with 1000 separate complaints.
Then LurkingPenguin corrected your misinformation:
> Chevron was in Ecuador through a subsidiary that had a partnership with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, which owned the majority (62.5%) of the partnership. Chevron's subsidiary completed environmental remediation required by the Ecuadorian government and signed a settlement agreement with the government in 1995 releasing it from all environmental claims.
Then you replied without admitting your false statement, and his comment remains downvoted.
This whole discussion is a prime example of how unfair and biased most people are. It's a wonder any semblance of justice is ever done in this world.
This is what Chevron-owned Texaco has done in the 90's :
> Chevron has argued that Texaco spent $40m ($31m) cleaning up the area during the 1990s, and signed an agreement with Ecuador in 1998 absolving it of any further responsibility.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45455984
This is the real corruption here. No way to make a thorough clean-up of 16 billion gallons of toxic waste water with that amount of money, let alone compensate the victims. Do you think this is justice? Do you think this agreement didn't deserve to be overturned? Is that what you're defending? Meanwhile Chevron's lawsuit against Donzinger ended up in a several million dollars fine against a single individual.
Indeed, it's a wonder any semblance of justice is ever done in this world.
This is how things work in banana republics. The state sacrifices the health of its citizens for the gain of the state, which basically operates for the benefit of the political elites.
State-owned oil companies partner with oil majors, usually because they lack the expertise and capital to exploit their own resources.
In this case, the state-owned oil company owned 62.5% of the consortium. When Chevron's subsidiary exited, it made an agreement with Ecuador under which Chevron's subsidiary performed the environmental remediation the state required and was released from future environmental claims.
This is really straightforward legally. There is no legitimate legal basis for this agreement to be overturned, which is why multiple courts have refused to recognize the judgment, and why multiple countries, including Canada, Argentina and Brazil, have refused to allow collection of Chevron assets in their countries upon this judgment.
If international law allowed corrupt courts to overturn valid legal agreements for any reason, or no reason, it would threaten the stability of the global economy and the economies of banana republics like Ecuador would be even more avoided than they already are, which would also hurt the Ecuadorian people.
The Ecuadorian people affected by this situation should first and foremost be angry at their corrupt government.
> Meanwhile Chevron's lawsuit against Donzinger ended up in a several million dollars fine for a single individual.
Because the court found that he used illegal tactics (fraud, bribery, etc.) to obtain a judgment in Ecuador. Injustice, real or perceived, does not make another injustice permissible.
Are you saying there's been lied about the various contacts chevron had with this witness and about him admitting to falsification of his testimony?
> It's just that people's preconceptions about evil oil companies screwing indigenous communities get in the way of thinking about whether it's actually true.
But even if I believe what you said, that preconception would still be true. It would just be a state-owned oil company instead of Chevron. So why are you saying that here?
If there was a legitimate case against Chevron for its past actions in Ecuador, it seems to me that Donziger has basically poisoned the well (no pun intended) and ensured that there will never be justice in any meaningful sense.
You might have a different perspective on what a "banana republic" actually looks like.
That's not a real court. That's one of those joke courts with judges appointed by the opposing parties and one who's appointed through a completely obscure process without outside supervision. Their livelihood depends on being chosen frequently. Judge Judy, but with larger stakes.
Right. It's not like the courts in Ecuador, which are "real" courts.