Major Victory For Ecuadorians In Arbitration Panel

Major Victory For Ecuadorians In Arbitration Panel

A private investor arbitration panel yesterday issued an important ruling against Chevron in the Ecuador pollution case. The panel affirmed what the Ecuadorian villagers have been saying for 20 years -- that the 1998 remediation agreement between Chevron and the Government of Ecuador did not release the company from its responsibility to the private citizens of the region who are impacted by the company’s contamination. As a result, Chevron should no longer use the remediation agreement as a legal defense. It will be interesting to see if Chevron continues to use the agreement as a defensive argument in front of courts and with the news media.

Chevron’s defense has now been reduced to its “fraud” allegations which already have been rejected by eight appellate judges in Ecuador after a de novo review and in a unanimous decision by the country’s Supreme Court. Chevron’s allegations are being further discredited with new evidence as it becomes available through the arbitration and other proceedings – including evidence that Chevron paid a fact witness $2 million to lie about a supposed bribe in Ecuador to taint the judgment there.

Further evidence has come to light that Chevron’s $2 million witness lied. See this recent Courthouse News article: http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/27/amazon-judges-data-secretly-scanned-in-9-8b-chevron-fight.htm

Also, the federal appellate court in New York will hear oral argument on April 20th from the Ecuadorians and their U.S. attorney, Steven Donziger. Donziger’s appellate brief cites 11 legal hurdles Chevron must clear to affirm the lower court decision in the company’s racketeering case. See the brief here: http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Reply-Final.pdf

Attached is the arbitration panel’s ruling. Its decision is on page 59. Below is a statement about the ruling.

Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for Steven Donziger, said:

“This ruling proves what the Ecuadorians have been saying for 22 years. They have a right to sue and in fact they did sue. Eight appellate judges in Chevron’s chosen forum of Ecuador ruled against the company. From the beginning of this litigation, Chevron knew the remediation agreement would not protect the company which is why it cooked up the fraud charges, manufactured evidence, and paid millions of dollars to witnesses for their testimony. Through its enormous power and unlimited legal budget, Chevron has been able to block a resolution of these important claims for more than two decades. Meanwhile, Chevron’s RICO charges are slowly but surely unraveling as the company finds it harder to explain $2 million in payments to a witness whose testimony is now in question because of new forensic evidence.”

ENDS

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