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Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything
- PakG1 7y agohttps://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility Is it any wonder that I'm extremely jaded with any corporation's public speech about how they care or how they're a responsible citizen? At the end of the day, corporate incentives are driven by shareholders and most shareholders are short-term driven, and only cry out after disasters happen, never before. Most corporations these days feel no different from tobacco companies talking about caring about consumer health.
- mushufasa 7y agoone solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-political-activity/ https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...
- pytester 7y agoNorway actually does this and it's fairly effective. The ever so slight downside to this is that, while Norway's state investment fund is vastly wealthy shareholder of many companies that can throw its weight around, I am, regrettably, not. One solution for this is for you to give me money.
- PakG1 7y agoIf I had shares, sure. But if I have disdain for the company, why would I want to own their shares? Hence, you have self-selecting shareholders who don't care.
- Joe-Z 7y agoSo you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.
- herbstein 7y agoAmen.
- ryanlol 7y ago> So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? Why would buying Chevron shares necessitate giving Chevron money?
- Joe-Z 7y agoBecause that's literally what buying shares is?[0]: Giving money to the corporation so they can finance future endeavours. Yes, you may not buy shares from them directly but from some other gambler. Still, to be able to sell you shares they need to have given it to Chevron first. [0] Please correct me if I'm unknowingly bullshitting here!
- ryanlol 7y agoAs you say, someone else has already given Chevron that money. Buying Chevron shares from “some other gambler” does not give Chevron money.
- 7532yahoogmail 7y agoYou'd be giving money to the company if the shares actually came from them. If you're buying on an exchange ... you're exchanging cash for shares with the counterparty almost never ever the company itself. The company is not acting as a market maker on its own stock, for example. The only way the company would benefit is if the purchase increased the ask price so that at the end of the day the price per share was higher.
- mushufasa 7y agoI'm suggesting that if you already have ownership rights in Chevron, you should tell them to stop polluting the Amazon. Which you probably do if you're invested in any S&P500 index fund, for example, even if you're not invested directly. Incidentally, the Government of Ecuador did buy a 25% share in the Texaco Lake Agrio oil field, via Petroecuador. And they also did raid offices at various points of the longstanding lawsuit iirc.
- praptak 7y agoIt's telling that nobody even mentions using your vote in the public elections.
- jessaustin 7y agoMaybe it's mostly Iowans on HN at this time of day?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoTelling of a good thing, surely? It's not ideal if the first instinct for solving every problem in society is "oh we'd better send the government in".
- jessaustin 7y agoHelp us out here... we were thinking this was about a series of court cases? Who owns the courthouse?
- Thorrez 7y agoOne thing I'm confused about is why he's charged with criminal contempt. > To Donziger, who had already endured 19 days of depositions and given Chevron large portions of his case file, the request was beyond the pale, and he appealed it on the grounds that it would require him to violate his commitments to his clients. Still, Donziger said he’d turn over the devices if he lost the appeal. He said he would obey the order if he lost the appeal. But the article doesn't say what happened to the appeal, is it ongoing, is it over, who won?
- TomMckenny 7y agoThat is a good question. I wonder if maybe no judgement has even been entered, just the contempt ruling. And if so, could this trick could be used to prevent an appeal and keep him under arrest indefinitely? IANAL obviously, but very curious.
- slavik81 7y agoHe lost the appeal. From Wikipedia: > In March 2014, a United States district court judge ruled that the Ecuadorian plaintiff's lead US attorney, Steven Donziger, had used "corrupt means," including payment of almost US$300,000 in bribes, to obtain the 2011 court verdict in Ecuador. The judge did not rule on the underlying issue of environmental damages. While the US ruling does not affect the decision of the court in Ecuador, it has blocked efforts to collect damages from Chevron in US courts.[55][56] Donziger and the two Ecuadorian defendants appealed, and on August 8, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment against them in all respects. When he turned over the documents, it revealed "that the 2009 environmental report signed by a court-appointed expert had largely been written by an environmental consultancy company hired by the plaintiffs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Agrio_oil_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Agrio_oil_field
- shkkmo 7y agoI believe you are conflating appeals. The criminal contempt of court is from August 2019, the appeal you cite is from 2016. That wiki article seems to have major quality and sourcing concerns and is not something that I would trust.
- roca 7y agoI don't know who's right here, but it is suspicious that The Intercept's article doesn't even mention the judgement for Chevron from the The Hague's arbitration panel. https://www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron/stories/documents/international-tribunal-rules-for-chevron-in-ecuador-case.pdf https://www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron/stories/documents/in...
- ptah 7y agothose treaties are despicable. to receive US aid you have to essentially give carte blanche to US corporations to raid and rape your country and its people as they please. EDIT: essentially the hague court is enforcing the heinous practice of forcing the prioritization of corporate profits over country's sovereignty, and the wellbeing of its citizenry and envrionment
- darawk 7y agoIt seems like you are confusing some things. The Hague is enforcing international law - which is its purpose. The treaties were entered into by fully competent governments. These aren't uneducated minors being pressured into a deal they don't understand. They're national governments.
- Haga 7y agoBribed and bullied like minors.
- ptah 7y ago> pressured into a deal they don't understand you would be surprised as to how many people would assume that they would still be able to hold a corporation to account if they completely make a country unlivable and kill citizens. these treaties are morally wrong and make it legal for corporations to destroy the habitibility of a piece of land and kill its inhabitants if it is profitable to them
- darawk 7y ago
- NotAnAccountNO 7y agoVery scary. I can only assume that Ecuadorians will pursue this further.
- mapcars 7y agoWhy Ecuadorians? This is American company destroying other countries.
- xbmcuser 7y agoStuff like this is the reason when the west cries about China silk road initiative most of the countries don't care as Western countries have been exploiting their resources for years what difference does it make if China does it.
- jacobush 7y agoWell, if China can exploit one more person, it makes a difference to that person.
- socialdemocrat 7y agoCorrection, it is not the west as a single entity. Big western nations have tried exploiting other smaller western nations. In my native Norway I know several cases of this. When it became possible to utilize hydro-electric power, British businessmen would travel around the country and get farmers owning waterfalls drunk. Then they would get them to sign contracts handing over the waterfall to them. Same deal when Norway found oil. American oil companies tried hard to screw us over. They put in a lot of pressure and played dirty games. Fortunately our leader at the time Einar Gerhardsen was high skeptical of big capital and a self proclaimed democratic socialist. They bid their time instead of getting sucked into a one sided deal. In fact the system we managed to put in place to fight big multinationals trying to exploit our resources impressed the Chinese. So I believe Deng Xiaoping sent a delegation to Norway. China had in the past suffered from companies from great western powers owning everything in China. The Chinese wanted to learn from us how we had manage to let in foreign capital and expertise while keeping national control. So some of the systems in China with joint ventures etc was inspired by systems setup in Norwegian oil industry to protect Norwegian interests. Any small nation western or otherwise is vulnerable to exploitation by large rich nations. Today China itself is frequently twisting our arm.
- Keverw 7y agoWow this sounds crazy. He won a lawsuit in Ecuador, so the company got a judge in Manhattan New York to put him on house arrest? Isn't that overstepping their jurisdiction and abuse of power? Seems like a huge miscarriage of justice. Didn't even know this was possible unless there's something I'm missing here? Sounds like someone is acting out of bounds here.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoCharges were for violating US law. Chevron claimed that he paid off Equatorian judges, manufactured evidence etc. >>The decision hinged on the testimony of an Ecuadorian judge named Alberto Guerra, who claimed that Donziger had bribed him during the original trial and that the decision against Chevron had been ghostwritten. A lot of stuff happens in such places, but when you take on Chevron size companies, you better be squeaky clean. Hundreds of lawyers and PIs will find everything. Chevron can't bribe, but local lawyers and PIs no doubt can.
- socialdemocrat 7y agoSay the judge Alberto Guerra, was paid by Chevron or intermediates to say this, how would you prove that? Is the testimony of a judge all it takes?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoChevron proved bribery in the original case through the testimony of a judge, circumstantial evidence showing opportunities to bribe the judge, and substantial discussions by Donzinger's associates about how they wanted to pay a bribe and how easy it would be to do so. If a similar array of evidence were deployed to show Chevron bribing someone, I think most people would be convinced.
- shkkmo 7y agoChevron can't "bribe" the judge... They can just pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars and get him US residency while taking extreme care in prepping his testimony (which somehow still contained lies and inconsistencies after all that prep.)
- adrianN 7y agoWe somehow need to fix the judicial system so that companies with limitless money can't endlessly bully people.
- zentiggr 7y agoHow do you make money worthless enough that it loses potency as a bribe? More transparency called for here... let's have the judge's financials and phone records investigated by a special counsel.
- oefrha 7y ago> Even though the ruling was subsequently upheld by the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, Chevron immediately made clear that it would not be paying the judgment. Instead, Chevron moved its assets out of the country, making it impossible for the Ecuadorians to collect. WTF? A nation state couldn’t have seized the assets? It seems that multinational megacorps are truly more powerful than and above the law in small countries these days.
- mapcars 7y ago>megacorps are truly more powerful than and above the law in small countries these days. Why in small countries? They do what they want in America too.
- austincheney 7y agoHere is a more potent example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
- jojo2000 7y agoIt's a tragedy. Those unsung heroes need some help as they are our moral compass, and guardians of our future.
- darawk 7y agoOn the one hand, this sounds bad for Chevron. On the other hand, what is the probability that corruption happened in an Ecuadorian court vs a US court? It seems to me somewhat more likely that the Ecuadorian court was corrupt here, than that Chevron managed to influence a US judge to this degree. Of note, he could simply turn over his phone and this would end. There is no assertion here that he is protecting some witness from harm. The fact that he is unwilling to do that should give us some pause.
- robochat42 7y agoThink about it from the lawyer's point of view. If the story is article is accurate then someone has a vendetta against him. Someone has already spent a lot of money on an Ecuadorian judge to fabricate evidence against him. Now they want his phone and computer. Who knows what they could 'find' on them. Even if the truth is more murky than presented in this article. He may have needed to contact shady people as part of his work and this could clearly be used to smear him. Of course, the article could be a gross misrepresentation of the truth but a quick google search reveals that the feud between Chevron and Donziger has been widely reported and lasted more than 20 years. The fact that he is unwilling to hand over his phone is just the latest salvo in a long battle.
- socialdemocrat 7y agoIf we are to believe the article, Chevron was on a vendetta against him, spending huge amounts of money to destroy him. Paying people to dig dirt. Surely you must see the immorality of this? I mean we are not asked to believe anything crazy here. A company made enormous environmental damage. Is that premise hard to believe? Next they refused to pay or invent excuses? Again nothing odd about that. Some lawyer takes up the case and wins. Again nothing out of the ordinary. The company fights him tooth and nail. Nothing weird thus far. What is novel is really just the extent to which they have gone to smear him and destroy him. That they are motivated to do this is not strange at all.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoIf they honestly believe the guy created a fraudulent scheme to steal billions of dollars from them, no, it doesn’t seem particularly immoral to spend millions making sure he gets in trouble for it.
- baybal2 7y agoFrom https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40738-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Approved-Secret-Chevron-Payments-to-Court-Official-Who-Swayed-RICO-Case-for-Company https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40738-U-S-Judge-Kapla... >The evidence demonstrates that Chevron sent the funds in 2013 to the account of Max Gitter, a court-appointed Special Master who at the time was working as Senior Counsel at the high-profile corporate law firm Cleary Gottlieb. Gitter is a personal friend and former law partner of Lewis A. Kaplan, the controversial federal judge who presided over the Chevron “racketeering” (or RICO) case and who repeatedly has been accused of bias in favor of the oil giant in its multiyear attempt to try to taint a $9.5 billion environmental judgment against it handed down by Ecuadorian courts. >Gitter and an associate were secretly billing Chevron a total of $1,330 per hour for their work sitting in weeks of depositions leading up to the civil RICO trial, which began in October 2013. That amount is more than many of the indigenous peoples in Ecuador who won the judgment make in one year, said Patricio Salazar, the Ecuadorian lawyer for the Front for the Defense of the Amazon (FDA), the group that represents the affected communities. I think it's 100% clear cut what's going on here
- rayiner 7y agoYour article strips everything of context and attempts to make it seem like something nefarious is going on. But the article never suggests any sort of link between Gitter and Chevron, other than payment of fees the court ordered Chevron to pay. It's Glenn Beck level "connect the dots" rhetoric. Gitter was appointed as a special master for the trial, after having agreed to do a bunch of work, such as mediation, for free. Appointment of a paid special master is a common practice in the Anglo legal system for cases where the Court needs a neutral third party to manage day-to-day issues in a complex matter. The special master is therefore often a lawyer that the judge trusts. (Maybe the practice of appointing special masters could be made more meritocratic, but nothing suggests either the special master or the judge had any prior connection to Chevron.) The special masters fees are paid by the parties.[1] Indeed, contrary to the article's spin, ordering only one side to pay the special master's fees is usually punishment to that party for having done something wrong.[1a] So of course Chevron paid Gitter. That is standard practice. The plaintiffs were also supposed to pay Gitter. But they refused. The whole thing about the plaintiffs being impoverished farmers who couldn’t afford the special master’s fees is again out of context. The plaintiffs had millions of dollars in funding from multiple investors for the payment of litigation costs.[2] The point about not paying Gitter’s law firm to make it seem like there was something improper is again specious. Gitter is a retired partner at his firm, which means he has an association but is not a partner or employee. The special master engagement was his personal engagement, not the firm’s. The firm provided a separate bill for the associate who assisted Gitter. (It is a typical courtesy for firms to loan out associates to assist retired partners with their individual engagements.)[3] Finally, the Second Circuit's opinion upholding the fee award makes clear that while Gitter initially left off descriptions of how he spent the billed time, the court ordered him to provide those descriptions and he did so: https://casetext.com/case/chevron-corp-v-donziger-29 https://casetext.com/case/chevron-corp-v-donziger-29 > Chevron's bill of costs contained copies of the bills it had paid for the compensation and expenses of the special masters and their assistant. In the case of one of the two special masters, former Magistrate Judge Katz, the material included detailed, contemporaneous time records. In the case of the other, Max Gitter, Esq., it included invoices showing the hours worked and the billing rates but not time detail. Accordingly, by order dated November 9, 2017, the Court (1) required that Mr. Gitter and Cleary, Gottlieb provide Donziger and the Court with "time records (including any description of services the existing records contain) sufficient to show the services rendered that were . . . included in the bill of costs taxed by the Clerk," and (2) requested that the special masters make a recommendation with respect to the allocation of the special master costs as between the defendants and Chevron. Donziger then was given until December 4, 2017 to object to the reasonableness of the hours devoted to the services performed by any or all of the special masters or their assistant and until December 23, 2017 to object to the special masters recommendation. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_53 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_53 ("Payment of the master's fees must be allocated among the parties and any property or subject-matter within the court's control."). [1a] From above. "A party whose unreasonable behavior has occasioned the need to appoint a master, on the other hand, may properly be charged all or a major portion of the master's fees." [2] Opinion linked above. "Perhaps more fundamentally, Donziger's focus on his supposed personal circumstances should not blind one to the fact that the litigation with Chevron, including this case, has been financed by third-party funders." [3] Opinion linked above, footnotes 121-122.
- bronzeage 7y agoSo a US judge, which seems extremely likely to be taking bribes himself, convicted a lawyer in bribing a judge according to a single bribed witness. So ironic... This judge needs to be thoroughly investigated on his connections to Chevron.
- naringas 7y agothe law as a system of rule to organize society is failing (another example is those kids prosecuted for child porn because they took pictures of themselves before being over the age of consent). money rules society, and legality works for money; at the sime time, money as a system is encoded and enforced by the legal system. we have built a civilization/socity which has trapped us. the matrix is not made out of computers but of corporate institutions. by this point most corporations of this magnitude are pretty much autonomous, neither their shareholders nor the justice systems can reign them in.
- naringas 7y agoall these kind of weird comments I make as an attempt of being critical ofthen get downvoted. I don't understand why but the outcome is I make less of them and think twice before posting (I probably shouldn't post this, but meh, this is public self-introspection). My take away is that I should somehow make them better but I don't understand why some get downvotes. maybe I make big and unjustified logical jumps? maybe I'm to paranoid? in any case I think way too much... some examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21536936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21536936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20175491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20175491 (this is a taboo topic, always thread carefuly near those) and one in which I did 'it' correctly, but it took like 20 minutes to write: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20991015 another "good" one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603793
- refurb 7y agoI know plenty of people will dismiss it as a right wing publication, but the case against Chevron get weirder and weirder the deeper to you. Both sides are up to some some shady shit[1] After a lengthy exploration of bribery, money laundering, and other corruption, Judge Kaplan concludes: “The decision in the Lago Agrio case was obtained by corrupt means. The defendants here may not be allowed to benefit from that in any way. The order entered today will prevent them from doing so.” [1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/chevron-case-shakedown-ecuador-roger-waters/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/chevron-case-shakedow...
- rayiner 7y agoThis article is obscenely misleading. Skip the narrative, and go straight to the 500 page Southern District of New York opinion finding that Donzinger procured the Ecuador judgment through extortion and fraud: http://www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecuador-Opinion-3.4.14.pdf http://www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecua... > Upon consideration of all of the evidence, including the credibility of the witnesses – though several of the most important declined to testify – the Court finds that Donziger began his involvement in this controversy with a desire to improve conditions in the area in which his Ecuadorian clients live. To be sure, he sought also to do well for himself while doing good for others, but there was nothing wrong with that. In the end, however, he and the Ecuadorian lawyers he led corrupted the Lago Agrio case. They submitted fraudulent evidence. They coerced one judge, first to use a court-appointed, supposedly impartial, “global expert” to make an overall damages assessment and, then, to appoint to that important role a man whom Donziger hand-picked and paid to “totally play ball” with the LAPs. They then paid a Colorado consulting firm secretly to write all or most of the global expert’s report, falsely presented the report as the work of the court-appointed and supposedly impartial expert, and told half-truths or worse to U.S. courts in attempts to prevent exposure of that and other wrongdoing. Ultimately, the LAP team wrote the Lago Agrio court’s Judgment themselves and promised $500,000 to the Ecuadorian judge to rule in their favor and sign their judgment. If ever there were a case warranting equitable relief with respect to a judgment procured by fraud, this is it. Subsequently, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague found that the Chevron judgment was procured by fraud and should not be enforced: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2019/04/14/dutch-high-court-finds-for-chevron-over-ecuador/#68208c1b6723 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2019/04/14/dutch-... > And last week, on April 12, 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision. Last week's decision means that the five arbitral awards are no longer subject to challenge. This includes the BIT Tribunal's interim awards ordering Ecuador to “take all measures necessary” to prevent or suspend enforcement of the Lago Agrio Judgment worldwide and declaring Ecuador in breach of international law for having failed to voluntarily do so.
- tptacek 7y agoWow, this is a hell of a find.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Lazare 7y agoInteresting that there's no mention of the documentary "Crude" at all. For those unfamiliar, it was a (very pro-Donziger ) documentary that seemed to suggest Donziger was crossing some ethical boundaries. Chevron sued to obtain outtakes and unused footage, and the result was extremely damning for Donziger . He's on tape, talking to a documentary crew, admitting to much of what he was later accused of: http://opiniojuris.org/2010/08/04/chevron%E2%80%99s-explosive-filing-on-collusion-between-plaintiffs-and-ecuadorian-court-appointed-expert/ http://opiniojuris.org/2010/08/04/chevron%E2%80%99s-explosiv...
- bookofjoe 7y ago"I was never ruined but twice in my life: once, when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one."—Voltaire
- alexandercrohde 7y agoThis discussion is simply an illustration of a larger problem -- namely that none of us know anything. We have documents alleging person X said Y, because of Z. Without any real first-hand knowledge, none of us actually know how reputable the justice system is in Ecuador, how plausible bribery is, or much at all. First hand, all we know is web-pages on the internet. I think maybe it's best to take a step back from this specific case and ask "What policies could make bribery harder in general across the board?" Is there a way to build a system (e.g. justice-system, news-system) that results in less ambiguity?
- rayiner 7y ago> This discussion is simply an illustration of a larger problem -- namely that none of us know anything. Not true. We do know stuff. On one side, you have a decision of the Ecuadorean courts upholding the judgment. On the other side, you have decisions from the U.S. and the Netherlands saying that the judgment was procured by fraud. And you have decisions from Canada, Argentina, and Brazil that do not get into the fraud, but nonetheless declining to enforce the judgment. Who do you believe?
- alexandercrohde 7y agoThat's my point. I know nothing. All I know is what intermediaries (whom I've never met) say. The Ecuadorian judge says the American judge is lying, the American judge says the Ecuadorian judge is lying. I personally haven't looked at any evidence. And if I did, how could I personally know if it's valid? You're caught-up and emotional in this one tiny thread which is insignificant. We should be talking about the larger problem.
- HoustonRefugee 7y agoChevron messed up the environment for farmers, Donziger broke the law to make them pay for what they did, and Chevron moved assets and left. The losers are the farmers who have to clean that mess up. A lot happened and we are back at the exact same problem. Question: does any of what happened in Chevron vs Donziger really matter?
- hitekker 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_Corporation#Environmental_damage_in_Ecuador https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_Corporation#Environm... For context on this decision. Some people worship corporations, and we should remember that those people value paper dollars over human lives.