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Chevron wins case to jail lawyer Steven Donziger
- adamnemecek 5y agoThis is insane. What can the public do about this?
- rce 5y agoWhy is it insane? The article said he fabricated and withheld evidence and won the case via bribery and fraud. I'm not familiar with this case, but that seems to be the findings of the court 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
- woodruffw 5y agoThe article says that Chevron has accused him of those things. Chevron, to my mind, is not a famously honest company, and the fact that the US Attorney for the SDNY declined to case suggests that this might be more scorched earth by a large corporation than about actual justice.
- WillPostForFood 5y agoThe NY Times article says the judge appointed the law firm, not Chevron as this article claims. 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
- sacred_numbers 5y agoIt may have been a judge that appointed the firm, but it's kind of suspicious that he would appoint a firm that had previously represented Chevron to represent the US Government. That seems like a pretty big conflict of interest.
- jahewson 5y agoThat’s not a conflict of interest - the prosecution is supposed to be “against” the defendant.
- cgio 5y agoMaybe so, but on behalf of its client, the government? The court? Not on behalf of someone else who is not paying. Hard to imagine there was no other law firm that would take this job, and if not then that’s one more negative sign for validity of prosecution, right?
- 6510 5y agosee the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc
- woodruffw 5y agoThe judge’s selection is the conflict of interest, not the prosecution itself. Selecting a private firm that’s financially entangled with the aggrieved party to discharge the duties of the Department of Justice is extremely unusual and concerning.
- r00fus 5y agoI've never heard of this kind of thing happening before. I wonder how close Kaplan is to Chevron.
- jahewson 5y agoIt’s very rare for a disbarred lawyer to spend 7 years ignoring court orders. Kaplan is really pissed off and wants consequences.
- DeathArrow 5y agoI find it weird that in the US law system a private company can prosecute someone. What's next? Hiring private judges and juries?
- hellbannedguy 5y agoIn certain parts of the USA we have judges who were never lawyers.
- soco 5y agoNot that surprising when you remember the private prisons.
- useragent86 5y agoIt can't. The NYT article says: > 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.
- makomk 5y agoThe US courts also found that he had, in fact, done those things. Their main evidence for this was internal e-mails and memos by Donzinger and his colleagues where they talked about, planned, and carried out exactly those actions. (I read the ruling back when this last came up on HN.)
- paulirish 5y agoone of these things is not like the other.
- danuker 5y agoHere's from the Wikipedia article on the judge (Kaplan). > 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_Donzinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_A._Kaplan#Chevron_vs_Don...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- beebeepka 5y agoBeing accused of bribery by Chevron (a company as dirty as they come) is all the evidence you need, huh?
- 6510 5y agoHe says he was put under house arrest for appealing the handing over of his laptop because it has his clients confidential information on it. interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoWhy should the public do anything about this? A US court found that the $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador was procured by fraud, bribery, and racketeering. From Wikipedia: > 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.
- tgv 5y ago> the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague 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.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
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- epaga 5y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024740
- hardwaresofton 5y agoHow does this make it to the front page, from a likely biased source (offshore-technology.com, I'm sure they don't have a bias!) when all the articles I've posted about the lead up to this don't? > He was also disbarred from working in New York in 2019, and has been in home detention since August that same year. This was hitherto unheard of for a lawyer. He was not a flight risk, this was about punishing anyone who would sue large corporate interests. The linked article is much better with salient details: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawyer-steven-donziger-ecuador-house-arrest 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. > Donziger was made liable for millions of dollars in Chevron’s legal costs and the company was granted seizure of his laptop and cellphone. When he appealed this, claiming the devices contained sensitive client information, the judge, Lewis Kaplan, hit him with criminal contempt charges, upheld on appeal, that led to his house arrest. Does that sound above board? Not like persecution of someone who was successful in securing a judgement against Chevron? Conflicts of interest somehow abound in such a critical case. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, being a powerful multinational company is a pretty good legal tactic. [EDIT] I posted about this twice before as well, guess it was much more interesting this time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28735982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28735982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162564
- vanattab 5y agoIn case anyone here is actually interested in trying to understand the situation, here is the full option from the RICO case in 2014. https://www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecuador-Opinion-3.4.14.pdf https://www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecu...
- _huayra_ 5y agoYeah this is straight up propaganda. Anyone who goes to the homepage for this site can see that it's clearly not aligned with the truth, as a pro-fossil fuels propaganda journal. It's shocking how many other comments in this HN thread will just believe anything they read in this piece...
- e12e 5y agoSee also: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/steven_donziger_judicial_harassment_from_chevron https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/steven_donziger_judi...
- DeathArrow 5y agoIt's hard to discern where the truth lies. Who's wrong? Chevron? The lawyer? Both?
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> It's hard to discern where the truth lies. Who's wrong? If that's how you feel, then it's likely that a common and successful kind of propaganda has done its job. You don't necessarily have to be persuaded, you just have to doubt the normal conclusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_Is_Their_Product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_Is_Their_Product https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/ https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/
- sweetheart 5y agoThey succeed not by convincing you they are right, but by convincing you that knowing the truth is really impossible.
- useragent86 5y agoA phrase like "the normal conclusion" is itself propaganda, implying that anyone is abnormal who would have skepticism about whatever SideburnsOfDoom thinks; a thinly veiled shaming of, not even dissent, but mere neutrality and open-mindedness being faced with two parties offering conflicting narratives. Imagine standing before a judge and saying, after he's heard the plaintiff's and defendant's cases, "Your honor, if you doubt the normal conclusion, it's likely that you have been swayed by propaganda." Propaganda is everywhere, especially on the Internet. But of all the stories about which to imply that anyone who doesn't immediately choose sides against one party must have been propagandized--a legal dispute? Who's the biased one here?
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> A phrase like "the normal conclusion" is itself propaganda, Well, thanks for attempting to cast doubt on that.
- 5y ago
- chinathrow 5y ago> Chevron has not yet paid the money or enacted a cleanup I don't care much about any form of payment here (as it seems that large penalties hardly ever get enforced after they made their iterations through the courts) but please, why can't they just cleanup their mess?
- crooked-v 5y agoBecause they don't have to.
- hardwaresofton 5y agoBet you the people negatively affected by this care about the payment. The right answer is that Chevron pays them, cleans it up, and takes the steps to make sure they don't do this to other people. Monetary penalties are one of the only ways to communicate with these large multinationals the system calls "people".
- useragent86 5y agoAccording to whom? This comment[0] says the opposite: > 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. Seems like hardly anyone here cares about finding out what the truth is. They just want to collectively rage at the oil industry. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29036270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29036270
- chinathrow 5y agoThanks for your digging. > Seems like hardly anyone here cares about finding out what the truth is. They just want to collectively rage at the oil industry. I simply cited the original article, no need to jump to any other conclusions.
- timwaagh 5y agoI find it really strange a company can pursue criminal cases against an individual. I don't really care for activists but it just seems asymmetric. You can't after all pursue criminal charges against a company. I don't think it's allowed in my country. A company would need to raise the complaint to the state (say at the police station) and the public prosecutors would decide what to do with it.
- sweetheart 5y ago> I don't really care for activists I've never heard anyone express this opinion before. Can you explain why? Like, _any_ activism?
- Arnt 5y agoI'm someone else who doesn't really care for activists. Like I don't really care for you, and the law shouldn't either. The reason that so many statues depict justice with a blindfold is that the law shouldn't care whether you're an activist or anyone else — the law applies equally to us all. OP seems to be someone who cares about blind justice. "Symmetric" isn't the word I would choose, but I think you see how it has nothing to do with activism and everything to do with fairness and equality before the law.
- croon 5y agoI care for activists, and still think everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law. They're not mutually exclusive, which I assume is why GP asked. Activists usually oppose forces with an outsized legal sway which puts the activists in huge risks of being unfairly treated, as we know the law isn't as blind as it should be. It's not that they should recieve special treatment, but merely that both the law and us observers should be extra vigilant that justice is indeed served.
- pydry 5y ago>the law applies equally to us all In theory. Yet Julian Assange is in prison for journalism and Prince Andrew isn't in prison for raping a child. If the system didnt need to be kept honest we wouldnt need activists.
- josu 5y agoSome context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Agrio_oil_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Agrio_oil_field
- rdevsrex 5y agoAnd then let me guess, in the end Chevron will get away without having to clean up their mess. The whole story is fucked up on every side.
- lurtbancaster 5y agoLawyer/YouTuber LegalEagle has a pretty good overview video summarizing the litigation history - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7d2KoXmPXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7d2KoXmPXk [22:29]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- shakey_mcshake 5y agoOil companies can take political prisoners now. Wild.
- arminiusreturns 5y agoOk so I did some digging and reading on this, here is what I have for hn. Apologies if I've made any transcription mistakes. This is a very questionable article source to use for such an important matter. The author (Scarlett Evans) apparently almost exclusively publishes pieces in industry specific papers of a seemingly little informational value or at least it seems like just rewriting stuff others have done [1], with a theme of being pro-industry in almost all cases. There are quite a few better articles floating around by more serious journalists/outlets with crucial details that this website seems to leave out on purpose. [see refs] While the offshore technology article basically leaves it there, in other interviews he has given and other articles, the details are explained further: a) "He faces up to six months in prison after having already spent an unprecedented 787 days, by the day of his sentencing, on house arrest. Federal courts have never before ordered the pretrial detention of a lawyer without a criminal record for a misdemeanor charge." [6] b) The contempt of court sentence stems from this: "As part of a civil RICO trial, Chevron demanded and was granted sweeping access to Donzinger’s phone and computer. Donzinger appealed this ruling, arguing that it would give Chevron access to information protected by attorney-client privilege. Donzinger stated he would only turn over his phone and computer if the order was upheld on appeal. While appealing the decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan brought six counts of criminal contempt against Donzinger." [7] Donziger claims [8] that the contempt charge was unprecedented; "no lawyer has even been charged with contempt of court for appealing an order". c) The order, if not the contempt of court sentence, would make more sense if the surface level story used to justify the order was more credible. The claim the countersuit was based on and hence the order was that he had been withholding information and bribing a judge, to which Donziger responds "they basically framed me, they paid a witness 2 million dollars, Alberto Guerra, he was coached for 53 days by their lawyers, he came into Kaplan's court, Kaplan denied me a jury, and he claimed that he was in some meeting where I offered a bribe to the trial judge in Ecuador. Totally false, [it's] been rejected by 28 appelate judges in Ecuador and Canada." [8] edit: as others have cited, Guerra has later openly admitted falsification of his testimony. d) Furthermore, Donziger claims the judge himself likely has conflicts of interest that make him a non-neutral party, and that his conduct was unconstitutional. "Even more bizaare, by law Kaplan had to take his charges to the US Attorneys office, the regular federal prosecutor here in Manhattan, known as the SDNY, a famous office. They turned down the case. They declined to prosecute me, certainly concluding the charges were baseless." Of course he can't know that, so in more recent interviews he has not added this but I'm including it since it's in the video I was transcribing... He continues, "So Kaplan, rather than just stop there, appointed a private law firm to prosecute me in the name of the government. He hid the fact that this law firm, called Seward & Kissel, had Chevron as a client, as well as many other major oil and gas companies. So I was being prosecuted, not by the US Government, but by a private law firm, that worked for Chevron, essentially Chevron. So when I say it's the first corporate prosecution that's what I mean." [8] When I compared his statement to others, it seems the main defense is that Chevron is now a former client of the lawfirm; "Kaplan tapped attorneys the private law firm Seward & Kissel—which counted Chevron as a former client—to prosecute Donziger before assigning the case to his colleague, Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. Neither the civil nor the criminal trial faced a jury, over Donziger’s objections. ... Now represented by University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, Donziger’s appeal attacks the constitutionality of Judge Kaplan’s appointment of a private prosecutor after the U.S. Attorney’s office declined his case." [9] For those curious as I was, I found a video where he explains how he was denied a jury trial. Apparently there has been an exception created where if a judge agrees to limit a sentence to 6 months or less, the judge can deny a jury trial and try the case themselves. Donziger goes on the say that the newly appointed judge by Kaplan, Loretta Preska, may have her own potential conflicts of interest. "She's a member of the Federalist Society, to which Chevron is one of the major donors." [8] When asked recently what he wanted done, after complaining about the ability to hold lifetime appointed judges accountable, he asked that people contact their congressperson and Merrick Garland and demand that the prosecution be taken over by the DoJ and that he should be released, saying "I'm probably the only lawyer in US history essentially begging the DoJ to prosecute me." [11] He warns "This is a playbook Jimmy, I mean I think Chevron and the other big fossil fuel majors are gonna use this playbook if they can get away with it with me they are going to use it against other activists." [12] In discussion with Chris Hedges, he said "I'm the only person in the history of the state of New York, disbarred without a hearing. Based on findings in a civil case. In other words, Kaplan's findings, based on this false witness testimony, were used to disbar me and ... the bar grievance process ruled I had no right to challenge Kaplans findings, they applied whats called the doctrine of collateral stoppal, which is crazy. ... Thats a doctrine that means you can't relitigate issues already decided, but Kaplan didn't decide the case, the Ecuador court did. So you have this bizaare situation where you have 28 judges in Ecuador and Canada who validated the Ecuador judgement. Kaplan claimed it was a fraud based on false witness testimony, yet it's Kaplans findings that the bar used to disbar me without a hearing, I mean it's disgusting. ... There is a long history by the way in the United States of using the bar disciplinary process for political purposes to attack progressive lawyers or laywers who challenge the status quo. I mean this has happened to lawyers who represented Vietnam protestors, or lawyers who represented people charged in the red scare in the 1950's were drummed out of the bar constantly, it's controlled by the big corporate law firms... Isn't it ironic Chris that I lost my license, the Chevron lawyers who made up evidence to frame me are still practicing, you know I'm going to jail, the Chevron executives who made the decision to pollute Ecuador resulting in the deaths of thousands of people and the decimation of indigenous groups. They live with impunity. I held them accountable and I'm going to prison, I mean go figure." Sidenote: I found an interesting side story about the lack of coverage of the story by the larger journalistic publications referenced a few times, enough that I think it warrants being brought up. "First I've gotten a lot of play in the independent media and I want to salute all the journalists including you Jimmy who have had me on and written about this; The Nation, The Intercept, Chris Hedges, Robert Scheer, Will Menaker, ... Katie Halper, I'm missing many but it's just been really amazing. Now, having said that, big media has totally ignored the story. I mean I have journalists flying over from Germany 4000 miles to sit in my living room, and the New York Times headquarters is a 30 minute walk from my apartement and they won't even come talk to me. Now I later found out that one of Chevrons lead lawyers targetting me, Ted Boutrous Jr., [I found that he also is a member of the Federalist society] who has literally made millions and millions of dollars from Chevron for his work in trying to lock me up and demonize me, um, also represents the New York Times, and I think frankly the Gibson Dunn lawfirm where Boutrous works, Chevrons main lawfirm that's attacking me, New York Times is a major client, [a] total conflict of interest. We've called on the NYT to file Gibson Dunn and Boutrous, but I think that goes a long way explaining why they haven't covered the story. Now, neither has any of the networks. I mean I did an interview with ABC news, they were preparing a story for their website, suddenly the guy just dissapears and stopped answering my phone calls. So I think the fact Chevron is a major advertiser has a lot of power, and these corporate media outlets are so dependent now on the fossil fuel industry for advertising, and I might say deceptive advertising ... that has a lot to do with why the big media is ignoring the story." [8] 1. https://muckrack.com/scarlett-evans/articles https://muckrack.com/scarlett-evans/articles 2. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/steven-donziger-lawyer-sentenced-contempt-chevron https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/steven-donzi... 3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawyer-steven-donziger-ecuador-house-arrest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawy... 4. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/energy-environment/steven-donziger-chevron.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/energy-environme... 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/federal-judge-rules-for-chevron-in-ecuadorean-pollution-case.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/federal-judge-ru... 6. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/29/steven-donziger-sentencing-nadler-chevron https://theintercept.com/2021/09/29/steven-donziger-sentenci... 7. https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/human-rights-lawyer-steven-donzinger-should-not-be-in-jail/ https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/human-rights-lawyer-st... 8. https://youtu.be/R6kMtNjoR28?t=250 https://youtu.be/R6kMtNjoR28?t=250 9. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/anti-chevron-crusader-steven-donziger-denied-reprieve-says-he-must-report-to-prison-within-a-day/ https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/anti-chevron-crusader-s... 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2K3ypt3VFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2K3ypt3VFc 11. https://youtu.be/LKbpptFKaXc?t=378 https://youtu.be/LKbpptFKaXc?t=378 12. https://youtu.be/LKbpptFKaXc?t=848 https://youtu.be/LKbpptFKaXc?t=848
- sAbakumoff 5y agoDOJ can intervene just like they did it for Roger Stone and M. Flynn.
- encryptluks2 5y agoRule 42: > A person being prosecuted for criminal contempt is entitled to a jury trial in any case in which federal law so provides and must be released or detained as Rule 46 provides. If the criminal contempt involves disrespect toward or criticism of a judge, that judge is disqualified from presiding at the contempt trial or hearing unless the defendant consents. Upon a finding or verdict of guilty, the court must impose the punishment. What the heck are they claiming he did that warrants 6 months in jail? This is absurd. Hopefully, they can immediately appeal.
- newman555 5y ago“and justice for all”
- notRobot 5y ago@mods please change link to non-biased source! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawyer-steven-donziger-ecuador-house-arrest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/chevron-lawy...
- nuker 5y agohow to un-flag this post? I upvoted it, but someone "flagged" it, so it will be hidden after all? Why is flagging a thing anyway?