Eight years ago, Donziger and a team of Ecuadorian lawyers, on behalf of indigenous and agricultural plaintiffs, obtained the largest human rights and environmental justice ruling in history, a $9.5 billion verdict opposed to Chevron Corporation for oil pollutants in Ecuador’s Amazon basin. . Training
After the trial, Chevron withdrew his assets from Ecuador, left the country and refused to pay. The company now claims Ecuador’s verdict was issued fraudulently and produced a witness, who told a U.S. court. That he was aware of a bribe. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in Chevron’s favor, stopped the fine for U.S. pollutants, and hit Donziger in his country’s electronic channels.
Crime and punishment
Donziger, born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1961, graduated from Harvard Law in 1991 and founded Project Due Process, which provides legal facilities for Cuban refugees. In 1993, Ecuador’s Friente de los Angeles Amazon (FDA), which represents 30,000 victims of Chevron contamination, listened to Donziger and asked him to help him unload payment for his loss of angels, contaminated water and cancer outbreaks and birth defects in an existing region. known as ‘Amazon Chernobyl’.
Donziger first filed the complaint in New York, but Chevron insisted that the case be heard in Ecuador, where the trial began in 1993.
Evidence has shown that between 1964 and 1992, Texaco (now Chevron) discharged 16 billion gallons of poisonous wastewater into rivers and wells. Fifty-four forensic inspections showed that Ecuador’s average Chevron waste well contained two hundred times the contamination consistent with U.S. and global standards, adding illegal grades of barium, cadmium, mercury copconsisist, lead, and other metals that can damage immune formula and reproductive and cancer-causing formulas. According to Amazon Watch, by ignoring regulations, the company has stored about $3 based on the barrel of oil, earning another $5 billion in 20 years.
In 2007, during the trial, Chevron stated that if the victims continued the case, they would face “a lifetime of … litigation.” Whistleblowers persevered. Because those affected were very poor, Donziger and his team, with the help of the FDA, devised a cutting-edge solution to fund the case, providing investors with a small fraction of any agreement imaginable.
In 2011, after an eight-year trial, the court ruled in favor of the complainants. Two appellate courts and the country’s Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, upholded the decision. Seventeen appellate judges unanimously ruled that Chevron was guilty of the contamination and owed $9.5 billion to Donziger’s customers.
The Witness
According to court documents, Chevron “refused to comply” with the sentence and began to face the risk of “a lifetime of litigation.” According to internal corporate memos, Chevron has introduced a retaliatory crusade to attack victims, discredit Ecuadorian courts, and “demonize” Donziger.
Chevron has hired one of the world’s most infamous law firms, Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, in the past censored by England’s High Court of Justice for fabricating evidence. The judges in California, Montana and New York blamed Gibson Dunn and fined him for misconduct, such as tampering with witnesses, obstructing, intimidating, and what one judges called “legal brutality.”
Using RICO statutes designed to sue organized crime syndicates, the company filed a complaint of “fraud” opposed to Donziger. Judge Kaplan of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, a former lawyer for a tobacco company who considered himself a friend of large companies, agreed to hear the specific case. Kaplan claimed that the trial in Ecuador “was a smart religious dispute” and insulted the victims, calling them “alleged whistleblowers.” Gibson Dunn’s attorney, Randy Mastro, called the Ecuadorian courts a “farce.”
Prominent trial attorney John Keker, representing Donziger, argued that Kaplan’s trial was a natural intimidation and called the process a “Dickens farce” motivated by Kaplan’s “relentless hostility” toward Donziger.
On the eve of the trial, Chevron withdrew his monetary claims, allowing Kaplan to dismiss the jury and the final results himself. Chevron then unveiled his star witness: Alberto Guerra, a disgraced former Ecuadorian, ruled over who was removed from the bench for accepting bribes. In a Chicago hotel room, Chevron and Gibson Dunn’s lawyers rehearsed for 53 days.
At Kaplan Court, Guerra claimed that Donziger had approved a “bribe” for an Ecuadorian to issue a sentence and drafted the court’s final ruling to deliver a ruling, which was allegedly transferred to a USB stick. No evidence ever presented to corroborate it. Guerra later admitted to being a liar about these facts and a forensic investigation into the Ecuadorian PC’s ruling showed that Guerra had lied.
The whole story is now fabricated. Donziger’s lawyers tried to track down War and leave him, but the star witness has not yet been found.
“Chevron’s case,” Donziger’s lawyer Andrew Frisch said, “was based on the testimony of a witness who earned more than a million dollars.” Frisch stated that Kaplan’s decisions “were contradicted in total or in component through 17 appeal judges in Ecuador and 10 in Canada, adding unanimous decisions of the courts of both countries.”
However, without jury, Kaplan accepted Guerra’s testimony and concluded that Donziger had committed fraud. Eventually, Kaplan ordered Donziger to hand over his computer and cell phone to Chevron. Since this order violated attorney-client confidentiality, Donziger refused until the Court of Appeal can resolve the matter.
Kaplan accused Donziger of “criminal indifference” for rejecting his order. However, the order and contempt rate were so outrageous that New York prosecutors refused to come to terms with the case. Kaplan challenged the state government and appointed a personal law firm, Seward-Kissel, with publicity ties to Chevron, to act as a prosecutor, who in turn ordered Donziger to be put into “temporary home arrest.”
Legal violence
An anonymous ruling by the Second Circuit of New York, which is presumed through Donziger and his lawyers is Kaplan, filed a complaint against Donziger with the New York Bar Association Complaints Committee, which then suspended Donziger’s law license without a hearing. However, the barr referee and former federal prosecutor John Horan asked for a hearing and advised the return of Donziger’s legal license. “The scope of his search through Chevron is so extravagant and, at this point, so unnecessary and punitive,” Horan wrote, “he deserves to be allowed to resume practice law.” Donziger replied that “any impartial judicial official who objectively looks at the case is almost a regulation opposed to Chevron and Kaplan. The wind is changing and tangible evidence of the excessive injustice of Kaplan’s court will be revealed.”
This case turns out to be about bullying. Chevron is one of the richest corporations in the world. Whistleblowers are poor, indigenous and peasant populations with limitations of cash or lawyers. “Donziger came to rescue us,” says FDA President Luis Yanza. How much intimidation can there be in high-risk corporations? Donziger’s lawyers estimate that the oil giant has spent more than $2 billion on 2,000 lawyers, public relations groups and personal investigators.
At Donziger’s dinner, I met with supporters from around the world, Amazon Watch and Global Witness, journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders. “This case isn’t just about Steven’s fate,” said Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness in London. “I who suffer injustice is intended to intimidate the rest of us, cool the pictures of other environmentalists and corporate responsibility.”
U.S. human rights lawyers Martin Garbus and Charles Nesson formed a committee for Donziger with dozens of civil society leaders, including: Clive Stafford-Smith, founder of the Reprieve prisoner rights organization in London; Atossa Soltani and Leila Salazar, founder and CEO of Amazon Watch; Lynne Twist, co-founder of Pachamama Alliance who runs in the Amazon; prominent writer John Perkins; and prominent musician Roger Waters.
Perhaps the wind is changing for Donziger and those suffering in Ecuador. In June 2019, Amnesty International requested the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an unscrupulous investigation into the conduct, corruption of witnesses and fraud of Chevron and Gibson Dunn in the pollutant dispute in Ecuador.
In April, 29 Nobel laureates signed a letter that read: “(We) helped Steven Donziger and the indigenous peoples and local communities of Ecuador in their decades-old paintings to achieve environmental justice about pollutants caused through Chevron … Chevron and a pro- the business judicial ally, federal district judge Lewis A. Kaplan, produced honors of “outrage” opposed to Donziger. The purpose of (Chevron) is to intimidate and deter those suffering from its pollutants and a lawyer who has painted on its behalf for decades”.
A month later, more than 475 foreign lawyers, bar associations and human rights definers criticized Kaplan’s resolution for pursuing Donziger “on the basis of false testimony provided through Chevron, non-public animosity and … Chevron of a valid trial of a foreign court.” The letter, from the U.S. National Bar Association. And the International Association of Democratic Lawyers urges an end to space arrest before Donziger’s trial, noting that “this arbitrary detention sets a harmful precedent for human rights lawyers in the United States and around the world. ” “
On May 27, 2020, investment company Newground in Seattle, Washington, submitted two proposals to Chevron 2020’s call for representation, calling for governance reforms to address its upheaval in Ecuador and avoid long-term human rights and pollutant responsibilities. The proposals were supported by actor Alec Baldwin, musician Roger Waters and Nobel laureate Jody Williams.
On July 16, the European Parliament wrote to the United States Congress calling on the Congressional Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to investigate Chevron’s appeal to Donziger, which the European Parliament found “does not conform to what has historically been the United States for the rule of law in general and for the coverage of human rights defenders in particular.”
Late at night, at Donziger’s house, after the enthusiasts left, Donziger and his wife Laura drank wine. “We’re not going to give up, ” said Donziger. “The only fraud in this case carried out through Chevron. Modern nations have complimentary relations, officially respecting the decisions of each other’s courts. We are looking for compliance measures in Canada, Australia and other jurisdictions. Chevron owes money and they can not only run, hide and fabricated stories to avoid paying. They’re chasing me to review and replace the public narrative, but they’re guilty. They committed the crime, they harmed people, they were found responsible in a court of their choice. and they owe money.
Laura seemed exhausted through relentless harassment, but controlled to smile. “The fact is the fact, ” he said, and presented me with more wine. As I write those lines, in mid-July, Donziger has been detained at home for 345 days, nearly a year, more than any lawyer in U.S. history has been charged with contempt.
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We didn’t know what to expect when we told them we had to raise $400,000 before our fiscal year closes on June 30, and we’re thrilled to announce that our incredible network of readers has contributed $415,000 to help us keep charging as hard as possible. . we can this year crazy.
You just sent an amazing message: that quality journalism doesn’t have to respond to advertisers, billionaires or hedge funds; that the editors can basically thank the generosity of their readers. It’s so powerful. Especially in what has been called a “media extinction event,” when those seeking to benefit from the news withdraw, the Mother Jones network intervenes.
The months and years to come won’t be easy. Away from there. But there is no one with whom we would rather face the wonderful and demanding situations that you, our committed and passionate readers, and our team of intrepid hounds who come forward every day.
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