Litigation

Chevron v. the trial lawyers and environmental 'heroes'

By Carter Wood

Roger Parloff, legal analyst at Fortune, has done an estimable job of summarizing recent developments in the U.S. contingency-fee litigation against Chevron claiming environmental damage in Ecuador. From his Legal Pad report, "Evidence of fraud mounts in Ecuadorian suit against Chevron":

FORTUNE -- A lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador, which has become a cause célèbre for environmentalists worldwide, has suffered severe, crippling setbacks in recent months, as key plaintiffs lawyers have come under credible and weighty allegations of fraud....

Over the past ten months, Chevron's outside lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher have filed 11 civil actions in federal courts across the United States, each designed to pull back the curtain on what they say is an elaborate, two-year-long charade in which plaintiffs lawyers covertly planned and ghostwrote a crucial report on damages that was ostensibly being authored by an independent expert appointed as an "auxiliary" to the Ecuadorian court. The expert's final report, issued in November 2008, recommended that Chevron pay the plaintiffs $27.3 billion.

The civil actions are "1782 motions" (28 U.S.C. 1782) to obtain evidence and depositions from parties involved with the litigation in Ecuador. The San Francisco Chronicle -- Chevron is based in Richmond, Calif. -- also hits on the issues in a recent piece, "Chevron keeps up pressure in Ecuador suit."

Elsewhere, The Harvard International Law Journal -- does one add the qualifier "prestigious?" -- recently turned over its pages to Pablo Fajardo, the Ecuadorian lawyer who often serves as the public face of the anti-Chevron litigation, a symposium piece, "Corporate Accountability, Human Rights and Pursuing Justice in the Ecuadorian Amazon: Attorney Pablo Fajardo's Perspective on Aguinda v. Chevron."

Fajardo has been lionized as a human rights and environmental hero, a brave man fighting the U.S. exploiter. In 2008, he received the Goldman Environmental Prize; in 2007 he won the "CNN Hero Award" in the "Fighting for Justice" category.

Good PR, to be sure. Here's context about Fajardo not included in the law journal, from a motion filed Aug. 3 by Chevron in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, asking for a preservation of evidence.

Full post as published by Point of Law on September 13, 2010 (boomark / email).