O Canada! Ecuadorians Win Right to Pursue Chevron North of the Border

Plaintiffs have sought to enforce an $9.2 Billion environmental contamination verdict obtained in  Ecuador against Chevron Corp in Canada.  Today's post is shared from http://blogs.wsj.com/law,

Here’s an interesting quirk of big litigation that may hit a multinational company: A plaintiff can try to enforce a favorable judgment in just about any country in which the defendant has significant assets.
That can create a few headaches for defendants, who might have to chase a plaintiff from Cambodia to Chad to China to keep its assets from being seized.
Chevron Corp. on Tuesday got a tough reminder of this lesson, when an appellate court in Canada ruled that winners of a $9.5 billion judgment against the oil giant in Ecuador could try to recover the assets in the Great White North.
Writes the WSJ’s Dan Gilbert:
The plaintiffs, residents of Ecuador’s jungles, are seeking to enforce a 2011 judgment against Chevron by confiscating its properties in other countries where it operates. In May, a lower court in Ontario held that the Ecuadorean judgment didn’t apply to Chevron subsidiaries like the one that owns its assets in Canada, halting the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the company there.
The Court of Appeal in Ontario reversed the lower court’s ruling.
At points in its opinion, the panel seemed put out by Chevron’s litigation tactics.
“For 20 years, Chevron has contested the legal proceedings of every court involved in this litigation – in...
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Judge denies jury trial in Chevron RICO case

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

The federal judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit filed by Chevron Corp. has decided to deny the defendants in the case a jury trial. The trial is set to begin Oct. 15. Now, instead of pleading their case in front of a jury, New York attorney Steven Donziger and the Ecuadorians must do so before Judge Lewis Kaplan for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In his seven-page memorandum opinion Monday, Kaplan declined to order a jury trial in the case. Last week, Chevron said it would drop money damages claims against Donziger if Kaplan tried the case. The oil giant already said it would drop money damages claims against the two Ecuadorians, Hugo Gerardo Camacho Naranjo and Javier Piaguaje Payaguaje. Donziger and the Ecuadorians argued they are entitled to a jury as a matter of fairness. “But that argument — even if it had merit, which it does not — is beside the point,” Kaplan wrote. “Insofar as is relevant to this case, the availability of trial by jury depends on one thing alone — whether the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution requires it.” It does not, the judge said. Kaplan explained that when a party — in this case, Chevron — withdraws its damages claims and pursues only equitable relief, a jury trial is no longer available and issues must be tried by the court. “In such circumstances, trial by jury is available only if the parties and...

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Tribunal finds Chevron not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Chevron Corp. announced Wednesday that an international arbitration tribunal has found the company not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador. The tribunal is convened under the authority of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, also known as the BIT, and administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The PCA, located in The Hague, Netherlands, administers cases arising out of international treaties and other agreements to arbitrate. On Tuesday, the tribunal issued a partial award in favor of Chevron and its subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company, or TexPet. The tribunal found that the settlement and release agreements that the government of Ecuador entered into with TexPet released TexPet and its affiliates of any liability for all public interest or collective environmental claims. The arbitration stems from Ecuador’s interference in the ongoing environmental lawsuit against the company. “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,” Hewitt Pate, Chevron’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “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...

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