Oil Giant Charged With Forum Shopping and Violating Promises to Litigate Claims in Ecuador
(Chevron’s hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. on March 10 before Judge Leonard B. Sand in courtroom
15A of the United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl St. in Manhattan)
NEW YORK (March 08, 2010)--Chevron will be forced to explain to a U.S. federal judge this Wednesday why it believes it has the right to take the seven-year Ecuador environmental case (Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco) to a closed-door binding arbitration where the rainforest communities cannot appear, in apparent violation of the company’s previous promises that it would litigate the case in its requested forum of Ecuador.
The trial judge in the environmental case – where Chevron faces damages of up to $27 billion for allegedly poisoning an area the size of Rhode Island -- has yet to rule in what experts believe is one of the most extensively litigated environmental trials ever. Because Chevron expects to lose the trial due to indisputable scientific evidence proving extensive contamination, it is trying to use the arbitration to force Ecuador’s government to quash the case before it can end, according to representatives of the rainforest communities.
Chevron is trying to abandon the trial even though over the last seven years the parties have produced more than 64,000 chemical sampling results, conducted 103 court-supervised inspections of former Chevron well sites scattered throughout the rainforest, and created a trial record than runs to more than 200,000 pages.
“Chevron acts like a fugitive from justice in Ecuador because the evidence establishing the company’s misconduct is overwhelming,” said Jonathon Abady, an American lawyer representing the rainforest communities in the federal court action.
“We plan to explain to the court that Chevron has no legal basis for the arbitration and is engaging in blatant forum shopping to avoid responsibility for an environmental disaster,” added Abady, of the law firm Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady in New York City.
The hearing before Judge Sand will examine whether Chevron should be enjoined from initiating a private arbitration against Ecuador’s government under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. In what the plaintiffs describe as a “radical” maneuver that undermines the rule of law, Chevron claims the trade treaty gives it the right to force Ecuador’s government to order its courts to extinguish the Aguinda case on the grounds Chevron has been treated unfairly in the trial even though Chevron has yet to actually lose.
The arbitration is Chevron’s primary attempt to “escape” from an adverse judgment in Ecuador that would significantly increase its financial exposure, said Illann Maazel, who is litigating the case with Abady. “Chevron is more...
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