Posted by Tina
The Chevron Oil Company has finally been exonerated after years of fighting a multi-billion dollar judgement against the company in a case brought by environmental groups and activists and their lawyers. The case involved charges of polluting and damage to the environment in operations conducted in Ecuador. Chevron has maintained the original case was the result of fraudulent claims according to Chevron’s legal counsel, Hewitt Pate, who said: “The case against Chevron was the result of fraud, bribery, and other crimes, and its aim was extortion.”
National Review reports from the U.S. District Court judge’s remarkable opinion:
This case is extraordinary. The facts are many and sometimes complex. They include things that normally come only out of Hollywood — coded emails among [lead plantiffs’ attorney Steven] Donziger and his colleagues describing their private interactions with and machinations directed at judges and a court appointed expert, their payments to a supposedly neutral expert out of a secret account, a lawyer who invited a film crew to innumerable private strategy meetings and even to ex parte meetings with judges, an Ecuadorian judge who claims to have written the multibillion dollar decision but who was so inexperienced and uncomfortable with civil cases that he had someone else (a former judge who had been removed from the bench) draft some civil decisions for him, an 18-year old typist who supposedly did Internet research in American, English, and French law for the same judge, who knew only Spanish, and much more.
Kevin D. Williamson of National Review points out that Chevron’s case was brought under RICO law, which means that the case is part of an ongoing investigation. Apparently articles posted at Huffington Post and Politico written by Karen Hinton, a former Andrew Cuomo and DNC aid has been implicated according to court documents.
The court opinion is here.
A few articles on the case are here, here, and here.
Add another brick in the wall of dirty tricks the radicals of the environmental movement use to not only further their cause but extort massive amounts of cash from those they demonize on a regular basis.
Find out what Chevron is doing to make sure its operations are as environmentally safe as possible here.