The latest Chevron Ecuador news is that Chevron is not liable for environmental damage claims made and that stemmed from the operation of an oil production constortium from 1966 to 1992 that consisted of Texaco Petroleum Company, and Petroecuador, the state-run oil company of Ecuador, and generally called TexPet.
An International Arbitration Tribunal, which was formed from language in the the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, and assembled by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague (hence the reference to “The Hague” or the seat of government in the Netherlands) discovered that that the Settlement and Release Agreements that the government of Ecuador had with Texaco served to release Texaco of any liability for all public interest or collective environmental claims.
Hewitt Pate, Chevron vice president and general counsel said “The game is up. This award by an eminent international tribunal confirms that the fraudulent claims against Chevron should not have been brought in the first place. It is now beyond question that efforts by American plaintiffs lawyers and the government of Ecuador to enforce this fraudulent judgment violate Ecuadorian, U.S., and international law. Continuing to support this fraud only increases the government of Ecuador’s growing liability to Chevron and we urge Ecuador to reconsider its position and pursue a more responsible course.”
All of this stems from the fraudulent lawsuit filed by Steven Donziger and said to have been on behalf of the indigenous people of Ecuador, and that Ecuador itself was not party to the lawsuit. That was just one of many lies told in the formation of the lawsuit, foremost among them was that Chevron damaged the Ecuador Amazon, when it point of fact it did not.
But, eager to collect a billion-dollar judgement that he said he knew would make him rich, Donziger worked to craft false data, bribe judges, and intimidate witnesses, all in the process of getting the corrupt Ecuador court to award he and a small group of people (including, allegedly, Pierina Correa the sister of President Correa who has been accused of “trading on her relations with the President” according to a Wikileaks cable).
Now, all of this house of cards of fake information is slowly crashing down around Donziger and The Amazon Defense Coalition.
Meanwhile, Petroecuador, the real culprit in the messing up of Ecuador’s environment, and responsible for hundreds of oil spills, continues to go unpunished. Ecuador’s waters are dirty because of its activities over the decades, and a President bent on collecting petrodollars by any means necessary.
Stay tuned.