Story submitted by Eric Worrall
James Delingpole writing for Breitbart London has published a fascinating story of how green groups were undone by their own hubris and misleading evidence in their effort to sue Chevron Oil for billions of dollars for pollution.
Thanks to Chevron’s CEO John S Watson’s courageous decision to stand up to naked green bullying, and the arrogant stupidity of eco-campaigner Steven Donziger, the case against Chevron collapsed.
I don’t want to spoil the punchline – read Delingpole’s excellent post for more information about how green bullies lost a multi billion dollar potential court settlement, when they tripped over their own pride.
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R. de Haan says:
March 7, 2014 at 1:10 am>>>>>
1300 days? More like 20 years, methinks.
This was the moment when the rise of the green menace began to slow and our culture began to heal.
“Talked to Gustavo this morning about the [settling expert] report. I keep thinking we pay them so little, and they know the court’s peritos [experts] make so much, why will they want to keep doing this for us? This was my one bargain with the devil, but we can’t win with the devil b/c they can always pay more. Really frustrating, feel really boxed in.”
In my opinion, this moment at which, in spite of Donziger’s statement that “This is the way they do it in Ecuador”, it becomes obvious that he was out of his league. He was being played by all sides and had no clue.
From the article:
4. Donziger’s dodgy past.
“I feel like I have gone over to the dark side” wrote Donziger in one incriminating email… It seems that he belonged to the same Harvard Law School year group as one Barack Obama. Apparently they played basketball together… Donziger stood personally to make $600 million from the litigation should it prove successful.
7. The complicit media: if it’s green it must be good.
There have been several long articles about the Chevron/Ecuador story – one in The New Yorker, one in Vanity Fair, one in Bloomberg Business Week – each one more sympathetic to Donziger than to Chevron. The same has been true virtually everywhere the story has been reported in the media from The New York Times and the Telegraph to the Guardian and The Huffington Post. This isn’t just lazy journalism. It’s a salutory reminder of the degree to which our media, not just on the left but in corners of the centre right, is in thrall to the green propaganda machine.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Part and parcel of what Michael Crichton called the PLM — the ‘political-legal-media’ complex that runs constant propaganda in the background of our society, influencing the entire set of low information voters for its own self-serving ends. If Crichton were alive today I think he would add the President of the U.S. himself to this despotic clique.
They have been very successful, and this will not have much impact on the same voters. But every bit helps. The truth always helps.
_Jim;
Thanks. Watched Pandora’s Promise. Still selling the “minimize CO2” meme, but at least makes the logical case for doing it with modern nukes rather than impossibly huge windfarms and solar arrays.
Fun contrast: that Brazilian beach is about 40x as radioactive as the ruined city of Chernobyl.
“Yesterday we had a 5-hour [meeting] and it was extremely intense and frustrating.
Went through options on Global [Expert] – had Plans A through E, and I realized
how difficult this aspect of the case is going to be. Bottom line problem is we will
have no control over the [expert], who will be appointed by the judge. Pablo and
our legal team keep insisting that the solution is for the judge to appoint someone
who is favorable to us, but I don’t trust this approach so far.”
He still doesn’t seem get it. No one in Ecuador expects a dime out of Chevron, although they’ll take it if it happens. They are all working together to shake down Donziger & Co. In my humble opinion.
Let us hope that all other oil companies take a leaf out of Chevron’s book, and have the backbone to stand up to these green criminals. If they got together and agreed collectively to stop funding any so called ‘Green’ organisation they would not only receive the full support of their shareholders, but also of millions of people worldwide who are becoming sick to death of these lunatics. Come on oil companies, get together and do something about it ; you can still operate an environmentally responsible company without being dragged down by people who rely on your largess for their very survival.
What great news after the depressing week I’ve had. I’m switching exclusively to Chevron gas!
From the article: “Almost none of this information would have come to light in court if Donziger had not made one fatal mistake. In a supreme act of arrogance, he decided to turn his legal adventures into a Michael-Moore-style documentary with himself as the crusading hero …”
Not encouraging. “Good” only won this round because “evil” was dumb. As Lord Dark Helmet reminds us, it’s usually the other way around:
beththeserf says:
March 6, 2014 at 9:24 pm
Here in Oz, wonder will ‘our’ ABC cover this?
More likely cover it up, hmmph.
==========
funny was thinking the same.
watch abc r williams manage to make it sound as if the bigoil fellas were the bad guys in spite of the ruling.
or ignore it and refuse to allow comments etc as they usually do.
Wow, I would have thought attempts to pervert the course of justice by lying in court (perjury), fraudulent evidence and bribery of a judge in an attempt to extort billions of dollars would be a big story. Funny I haven’t seen this story on the BBC or in the Guardian or any other Mainstream media?
Obviously doesn’t suit the tree hugging presstitute’s green agenda.
Donziger made the wrong movie. This story should be made into a movie! It would be a great one!
Sounds a bit like that movie “Gasland”
@goldminor
“If the situation in Ecuador had been so serious and devastating, then why didn’t their government come in and take care of the mess first and then sue afterwards. I imagine that the locals did suffer, but they should have blamed their lousy government for not taking care of their own people.”
Well, that might have been a reasonable outcome if the government had developed ‘normally’ over the past few decades. One example is if the economy had developed for the benefit of the general population people might be more empowered and the environment better protected. If the CIA had not assassinated the President (and the President of Panama within a period of 4 months) things might have turned out very differently. You can read about it in, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins whose job it was to screw up the economy of Ecuador and bring the whole country into a condition of debt servitude – something he felt very guilty about later on.
Judges who will sell their souls for $500,000 are the bread and butter of the pillaging of the economies of developing countries. So in this case the sticky hands of a big oil company look cleaner than the greasy hands of Big Green Slime.
This is an appalling spectacle. I doubt anyone in Ecuador sees much reason to rejoice.
Brian H says: March 7, 2014 at 1:31 am Watson’s courages decision It was courageous, even.
“Courage mes braves”. Napoleon at Waterloo, Donziger has met his we can but hope.
philjourdan says:
March 7, 2014 at 4:18 am
—————————————
If he gets debarred, then he can always head to Hollywood.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
March 7, 2014 at 5:24 am
————————————–
The removal of Noriega was no loss for anyone. I don’t recall what happened in Ecuador. I,ll look it up.
bonanzapilot says:
March 7, 2014 at 1:22 am
Not surprised Russell didn’t want to get out of his air-conditioned car. For those of you who have not been down there, it’s really, really hot and humid. Also, the monkeys throw shit at you.
Which then justified him to throw said excrement at the truth?
Gary Hladik says:
March 7, 2014 at 2:57 am
Not encouraging. “Good” only won this round because “evil” was dumb.
========================================================
I suppose it’s wishing for too much that they keep appealing this so the antics become headlines. Greens in collusion and proudly by any means necessary means an ongoing criminal enterprise.
I read the whole opinion. While it’s true that Judge Kaplan declined to rule on the merits of the case against Chevron, it’s also clear that lawyer Donziger’s choice of fraudulent tactics cast enormous doubt on his case. What pushed him over to the “dark side” (in his own words) was the need to fiddle with expert evidence that was looking uncomfortably like an exoneration of Texaco–which had long since remediated its old spill–and like an indictment of the Ecuadorian-government-owened successor drilling operation, which apparently is still spewing crude.
Nevertheless, strictly speaking, the Kaplan ruling does not overturn the Ecuadorian judgment but only denies Donziger and a few others from benefiting from it by collecting their expected contingency fees: $600 million in Donziger’s case. The Ecuadorian plaintiffs are going right ahead with collection in some South American countries where Chevron still has assets.
For those interested in the legal term “Champarty”
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=WDT19060713.2.43
So it is sort of a “It depends” here in the USA.
The Kaplan decision is 497 pages. I read through the entire original complaint (165 pages) and my curiousity is not not sufficient to motivate me to read the entire decision. From what I did read I was disappointed that Judge Kaplan apparently believes that Donziger et. al. started out with a genuine desire to help the residents of the Orienté and only became corrupted later.
From the submissions in the Chevron pleading, it was clear there were never grounds to sue Chevron in the first place; Texaco had settled all environmental remediation issues with Ecuador and in 1998 obtained a final release from any further claims, years before they were acquired by Chevron. Donziger and his co-conspirators had to engage in corrupt practices to get the suit heard in the first place. They did not start out with a sincere desire to help poor Ecuadorans harmed by Texaco; they went shopping for plaintiffs, shopping for judges, shopping for crooked experts and shopping for investors to help fund the whole thing.
At the very end is the actual relief order:
After finding that Chevron has been irreparably damaged, Judge Kaplan then orders that any and all judgements collected against Chevron [in fraudulent proceedings!] be held in a “constructive trust” so Donziger et. al. cannot profit from them. Even after finding the defendants had already made provisions to hide judgement proceeds from both US and Ecuadoran courts, he rather surprisingly observes:
So the penalty imposed on Donziger et. al. for various RICO crimes, including fraud, extortion, false court submissions, subornation of perjury, bribery of foreign officials (just off the top of my head), is an order preventing them from collecting any portion of their fraudulent judgement in US courts, and an order that any proceeds they do collect from their fraudulent judgement (presumably in other jurisdictions) be held in a constructive trust.
This is not justice and it certainly is not a victory against Green extortion. Justice would be Donziger disbarred, all assets seized to compensate Chevron for losses and doing 20 years in Club Fed. Justice would be all the other principals in this fraud treated likewise in proportion to their involvement. Justice would be appropriate monetary judgements against allied law firms which “invested” in this suit and further disbarrment proceedings where warranted.
Bernie Madoff obviously got a raw deal; he should ask for a new trial.
You can read the original WUWT posting on this story here . The entire original complaint is here .
My summary is here , with a slight correction here .
[Mods: I gather comments with more than two links get flagged; 3 of 4 links here are to previous WUWT postings and the fourth is to the amended complaint in the Chevron RICO suit. Nothing controversial here. Thanks]
Donziger’s already got a job offer from Obama?
George Lawson says: @ur momisugly March 7, 2014 at 2:47 am
Let us hope that all other oil companies take a leaf out of Chevron’s book, and have the backbone to stand up to these green criminals….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your forget that Shell and BP have been in on the scam from the very start. They helped fund CRU for example. And the e-mails talk of getting grants from shell.
Shell Oil’s VP Ged Davis was an IPCC lead author for scenarios (The scenarios used to generate those climate models) Ged Davis’s scenarios are in the e-mails asking Climate Scientists for comments.
Enron And BP Invented The Global Warming Industry ” I know because I was in the room.”
I have to admit to being of two minds about rules against champerty.
Among the arguments against adopting the so-called English (loser-pays) Rule in the US is that it would have a chilling effect on impecunious injured parties’ attempts to vindicate their rights. To the (in fact, limited) extent to which anti-champerty provisions are applied here, they may bolster the argument that the poor can’t get into court. Their existence may thereby tend to militate against adopting the English Rule.
Since I think loser-pays rules tend to reduce frivolous lawsuits, and since (what I understand to be) the original reason for anti-champerty provisions has pretty much disappeared, there may be some benefit to dropping such vestiges as remain.