Activists and apologists for the shakedown litigation over supposed environmental damage in Ecuador once again tried to turn Chevron’s annual stockholders’ meeting in San Ramon, Calif., into a circus today. By now the Amazon Watch theatrics are old hat, and the cause they support — a lawsuit orchestrated by U.S. trial lawyers — has been revealed as fundamentally corrupt. Flying a banner off a bridge to promote a contingency-fee lawsuit demonstrates only witless fanaticism.

Chevron put together a short video to present its side of the case to the stockholders, shown at the meeting after Amazon Watch’s Atossa Soltani raised the issue. Its showing produced a round of vigorous applause from the attendees.

Concise and pointed. Very well done.

We wrap up the trial lawyer, activist, politician and media alliance that has gone after Chevron in a post immediately below, “More than a Lawsuit: A Circle of Political Pressure Against Chevron.”

A follow-up to the Shopfloor post immediately below, “Judge’s Ruling on ‘Crude’ Shows that the Truth is in the Outtakes“…

In ruling that movie director Joe Berlinger had to submit to depositions so Chevron can fully defend itself in court, Judge Lewis Kaplan also rejected Berlinger’s attempt to punish the company because it had suppposedly violated an order from the Second Circuit when it used the film outtakes for public relations purposes.

Berlinger’s claim rested in part on the assertion that Chevron supplied one of its court filings to Shopfloor, the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers, and that I wrote about the document in this Aug. 3 post. See, PR! But the assertion wasn’t true — as we explained here — and even it were, so what? There’s this thing called the First Amendment.

Judge Kaplan did not treat Berlinger’s claims kindly. In his 28-page ruling, starting on page 24, he writes:

As an initial matter, there is irony in Berlinger’s application. On the one hand, he has resisted production of his outtakes, and resists the discovery that Chevron now seeks, by invoking the Free Press Clause of the First Amendment. Yet he seeks to prevent Chevron from publicly discussing litigation taking place on the public record. The First Amendment, however, protects Chevron’s right to speak about this litigation at least to the same, and probably to a greater, extent than it protects Berlinger’s desire to avoid giving evidence in court like any other citizen. But Berlinger’s cross-motion fails for reasons having nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Alas, First Amendment advocates and media mavens like Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press appeared untroubled by Berlinger’s disregard for constitutionally protected liberties.

Judge Kaplan then provides a quick lesson on how federal courts use electronic filings, which make the documents public records, accessible by people like bloggers: (continue reading…)

A federal judge today dealt another setback to the trial lawyer/activist/media combine trying to shake down Chevron for alleged environmental damage in Ecuador. Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, ruled that film director Joe Berlinger must provide additional evidence about the shooting of his documentary-style film, “Crude.” David Itzkoff of the Arts Beat blog at The New York Times covers the ruling, “Filmmaker Ordered to Give Testimony in Chevron Case“:

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that a documentary filmmaker must submit to depositions in a case involving Chevron, writing in a strongly worded opinion that the oil company’s original request to see the filmmaker’s raw documentary footage was “no fishing expedition.”

In July a federal appeals court ruled that the filmmaker, Joe Berlinger, must turn over a portion of unused footage from his documentary “Crude” to Chevron, which said that the footage may be useful in its fight against a lawsuit in Ecuador.

Judge Kaplan’s 28-page ruling is here. He makes three points:

Berlinger’s suppression of the “Crude” outtakes tells you that despite all his claims about trying to make a fair movie, he was perfectly happy with being manipulated by Donziger and in turn with manipulating the audience, just as long as he had a compelling storyline. Didn’t matter if it was true or not.

But the truth matters when a U.S.-based business employing thousands of people is subject to a trial lawyer shakedown — $27 billion claimed in damages! —  and some of its employees are facing criminal charges in Ecuador.

Outtakes from the documentary-style movie “Crude” should leave no doubt that the campaign against Chevron instigated by U.S. trial lawyers has nothing to do with the law or justice, and everything to do with politics, PR and manipulating Ecuador’s judicial system.

Chevron has recently filed additional transcripts in federal court to support the company’s legal motions. Among the transcripts’ astonishing revelations:

• The U.S. trial lawyer leading the litigation, Steven Donziger, and the plaintiffs’ team discuss the need for “an army” of supporters to surround the courthouse in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, to pressure the judge hearing the lawsuit.
• The head of the supposedly independent group, Amazon Watch, worries that the cameraman recording the conversation is documenting an illegal conspiracy.

In July, Chevron successfully argued in federal court — the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals — that it had a legal right to review outtakes from the anti-Chevron film, “Crude.”  Both the plaintiffs suing the company for $27.4 billion — the Amazon Defense Coalition, ostensibly representing Ecuadorians harmed by oil drilling — and the movie’s director, Joe Berlinger, vigorously fought the motion.

No wonder: The outtakes show the litigation not to be the great moral cause that plaintiffs claim, but rather a cynical shake-down effort directed at the company because it’s American and it’s profitable. But that’s the nature of many of the lawsuits filed against U.S. companies that operate in poor countries.

As evidence, consider Chevron Document 22-4 (available   here Scribd version,), which documents portions of a June 6, 2007 conversation among Donziger, Luis Yanza (Ecuadorian coordinator for the plaintiffs) and Atossa Soltani, founder and director of Amazon Watch.

Most of the conversation is in Spanish, translated into English. (The transcripts include both languages.) The word “ejército” is translated as “army,” but it sounds more like a goon squad to us. Luis Yanza says at one point: “They would have to receive minimal training… things– details, so they do a good job for us. That’s it. And then, if it goes well, and we need, uh, if we need weapons, we can provide weapons.”

This is the same Luis Yanza awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2008, including an award of $150,000, for organizing Amazonian Indians.
(continue reading…)

The documentary evidence has been mounting for many months now that the U.S. trial lawyers’ litigation against Chevron for environmental damages in Ecuador was built on collusion, fraud and lies, all marketed as an environmental and humanitarian campaign.

This week’s revelations from outtakes from the documentary-style film “Crude” sealed the case. The collusion, fraud and lies are now on film, visible for the courts and the whole world to see.

So this next step makes eminent sense.

Chevron Files Petition in Ecuador Seeking Dismissal of Lawsuit

SAN RAMON, Calif., Aug. 6, 2010 – Chevron Corporation has today filed a petition before the Provincial Court of Sucumbíos in Lago Agrio, Ecuador seeking dismissal of the lawsuit pending against it there. In support of its petition, Chevron has submitted to the court video outtakes from the movie Crude that show the plaintiffs’ counsel, consultants, and associates meeting with the court’s supposedly neutral “Global Expert,” Richard Stalin Cabrera Vega, to plan and create the $27.3 billion damages report that Cabrera later would present to the court as his own.

Chevron believes that the video evidence proves that plaintiffs’ counsel and consultants colluded with Cabrera to present a fraudulent report and then to present a fraudulent “peer review” of their own work. Chevron also believes that the video proves that plaintiffs’ and Cabrera’s denials of their collusion in filings and testimony before the Ecuadorian court, before various United States courts and other institutions, and before the worldwide press have been false.

Chevron’s petition argues that the case must be dismissed as a sanction for the abusive misconduct by plaintiffs and their attorneys, and because the fraudulent “Global Expert” report submitted under Cabrera’s name is the only “evidence” supporting plaintiffs’ case.

Roger Alford of Pepperdine University School of Law has been reporting on Chevron’s court filing this week based on the “Crude” footage, including responses from Karen Hinton, the trial lawyers’ PR person, and an attorney for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs. His excellent posts are at the Opinio Juris blog here. But you cannot spin or explain away the clear meaning of the words of Steven Donziger, the head U.S. trial lawyer. As Alford writes:

In responding to concerns from their own experts that there was not evidence of groundwater contamination, Donziger replies, “This is all for the Court just a bunch of smoke and mirrors and bullshit.” (p. 12). That’s right, Donziger is caught on tape saying that the evidence he is gathering for inclusion in the court-appointed expert report about groundwater contamination is just smoke and mirrors and bullshit.

I would rarely advise our readers to read a court filing they don’t have to, especially during the summer recess. But this one is explosive.

Shopfloor posts:

• ‘Crude’ Footage Reveals Lies Behind Trial Lawyers’ Suit Against Chevron
• What Else Will Footage from ‘Crude’ Show?
• Chevron ‘Cherrypicks’ Film Footage? That’s Hilarious

(continue reading…)

Below we noted the lawsuit the Kivalina Alaskan native village has brought against oil, coal and power companies, suing them for contributing to global warming that has supposedly eroded the village’s shoreline. Now some filmmakers are out to depict this calamity, using the litigation as the narrative device.

From Public Nuisance Wire, “Film company shoots Kivalina documentary before trial ends“:

TORONTO – A Canadian-based film company has begun filming a documentary aimed at exposing the controversial case of Kivalina v Exxon Mobil.

Filming began last month in the tiny Alaskan village of Kivalina, a 3.9 square-mile town with a population of around 399 people. The village is in the middle of a lawsuit with Exxon Mobil over allegations the big oil company’s excess gas emissions have caused erosion and damages to the town.

In a press release, Phoebe Greenberg, one of the film’s producers, said she was intrigued by the subject matter and that the dramatic consequences of global warming affect not only the small Alaskan community, but the world as well. 

The production company labels Exxon one the world’s “worst polluters,” claiming the oil giant should pay for the consequences of global warming.

Too bad they have their minds made up already. We were hoping for an objective documentary by an objective filmmaker telling both sides of the story objectively. You know, like the anti-Chevron movie, “Crude.”

Ms. Greenberg better not hope for boffo box-office. “Crude” pulled in $4,219 in weekend gross last weekend, Oct. 2-4, That’s right. Four thousand bucks in four theaters, off 72 percent from the previous weekend.

Total domestic sales as of October 4? $81,257. That’s not quite the “huge hit” that Amazon Watch proclaimed. Tendentious documentaries that pretend to be something else just don’t sell.

The documentary-style film about the litigation against Chevron for past oil operations in Ecuador, “Crude,” has been rolled out around the country in recent weeks, accompanied by much touting by the anti-corporate activists and uncritical reviewers. The Los Angeles Times, for example, profiled the film’s director, Joe Berlinger, and the film under the headline, “‘Crude’ tactics in Ecuador.”

“Crude” ostensibly relates the story around a lawsuit filed by U.S. trial lawyers against Chevron for pollution caused during the operations in Ecuador by Texaco decades ago. (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.) And “Crude” is a well-made, even compelling movie. Too bad it’s only loosely related to the truth.

Berlinger’s product is a classic anti-business hit job, biased and selective in its telling of facts and spreader of myths and half-truths. But in the media coverage and reviews, the public rarely learns that much of what the movie portrays is bunk — or at least vigorously disputed by Chevron. The Times’ reviewer, Gary Goldstein, doesn’t bother to solicit a response from Chevron.

Berlinger claims to be an objective filmmaker, just bringing a good story to light. In remarks after the June premiere of “Crude” at the SilverDocs film festival in Silver Spring, Md., (Berlinger said):

I think one of the strengths of the film is that it is a fairly objective film, it shows kind of the warts and all of both sides.

Yet moments later he says:

For me the lawsuit is obviously the structural glue of the film. I made this film because of how we as white people have treated indigenous people over the years in both North and South America, and around the world. I think what multinational corporations have done in our name is just the late 20th Century and early 21st Century continuation of this terrible treatment of indigenous people. That’s really why I’m in.

It’s an objective film about the destruction of peaceful people by evil Western exploiters, he said, objectively.  (The photo above is from the SilverDocs’ presentation with Berlinger, right, and Steven Donziger, the trial lawyer who is leading the litigation against Chevron, financed by the Philadelphia law firm of Kohn, Swift & Graft.) (continue reading…)

Today in San Ramon, Calif., Chevron will hold its annual shareholders meeting, an event that will feature a fair amount of media circus mastering, courtesy of the trial lawyer/activist combine that has attacked Chevron for environmental damage in Ecuador, claims — and a $27 billion lawsuit — that Chevron vigorously rejects.

Houston Chronicle, “Protesters await Chevron meeting.” Excerpt:

A coalition of environmental and human rights groups offered a preview Tuesday when they released their own alternate annual report for Chevron. Dubbed “The True Cost of Chevron” and mimicking the company’s own glossy publications, the report compiles a litany of complaints about Chevron’s record around the world.

It IS a glossy report, publicized at a very nice website.

And there are activists flying in from Ecuador to agitate at the meeting, including, as Amazon Watch describes them, “Luis Yanza, winner of the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize, and Emergildo Criollo, a leader of the Cofán indigenous people.”

There’s an awful lot of money being spent in this publicity and pressure campaign against Chevron, clearly intended to get Chevron to settle the lawsuit, Aguinda v. Chevron/Texaco. Who’s paying for it?

Blogger Bob McCarty was wondering the same thing, and his research into the question represents a classic journalistic adage at work, “Following the Money Difficult in Ecuador Lawsuit”:

Ask any investigative reporter how best to get to the heart of any controversial issue, and he’ll say, “Follow the money.”  Doing that has been difficult, however, when it comes to the Amazon Defense Coalition, the nonprofit organization behind a pending $27 billion environmental lawsuit against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador.

For more than a month now, I’ve attempted to “follow the money” by asking questions about the ADC’s status as a nonprofit group.  My efforts began with an April 26 e-mail to Karen Hinton, ADC’s hired-gun public relations person, in which I asked for a copy of the ADC’s IRS Form 990.  In response to that request, Hinton said, “The nonprofit is based in Ecuador. There is no form,” and added later, “You are the first person to ask.” (continue reading…)

Below we write about the legal and political campaign against Chevron claiming that the company is responsible for environmental damage in Ecuador, a potent spin effort that will reach another high point tomorrow at the company’s annual shareholders meeting in San Ramon, Calif. The role of Trillium Asset Management as the point group in the attack-via-shareholders against Chevron is especially interesting as an example of the trial lawyer/activist combine at work against U.S.-based businesses, and it’s worth a little more attention.

In a May 20 letter to Chevron shareholders, Chevron’s corporate secretary, Lydia I. Beebe, described Trillium’s involvement:

In November of 2003, representatives of two of the three signatories to the proponents’ solicitation letter met with one of the American trial lawyers and others to plan a campaign to “pressure” Chevron. The email memorializing that meeting reports that Trillium Asset Management agreed to take the lead with regard to stockholder proposals. Trillium has submitted a resolution referencing the Ecuador case at each subsequent annual stockholders meeting. And in each year since the November 2003 meeting, the Trillium stockholder proposal has been used as a platform for carefully orchestrated media campaigns, protests and related activities – all of which appear to occur at the direction of the American trial lawyers in the case.

In their campaign for this year’s annual stockholder meeting, the plaintiffs’ lawyers and their colleagues have added a new dimension to their pressure strategy: a campaign to generate fear in the investment community. Having added a string of well-connected lobbyists to their team, we suspect that the plaintiffs have begun approaching public pension funds to hypothesize adverse scenarios concerning the outcome of the case. The plaintiffs’ lawyers themselves have approached analysts who cover our stock to convey similar messages. We understand that these presentations are heavy on the farthest extensions of the plaintiffs’ legal arguments regarding the trial in Ecuador, but light on the facts and the obvious weaknesses of their case.

Trillium has also sent out a “warning” to investors, Beebe writes, based on a study generated by a small research outfit and drawing on the plaintiffs’ arguments.

Legal issues of fiduciary responsibility are beyond our ken, and certainly there’s a long history of people buying stock in order to influence a company’s operations. Trillium has been around since 1982 and has its own lawyers, so we expect they think themselves on firm legal footing. And we assume most people who invest with Trillium know that the outfit exists to push its activist agenda.

Still, there’s something just wrong about an investment management firm working behind the scenes with trial lawyers to do damage to the company the firm is investing in. If the campaign succeeds in forcing a settlement, Chevron’s stock will take a hit and its long-term earnings — and probably those of other companies that invest abroad in similar circumstances — will be restrained. When pitching their services to potential clients, perhaps Trillium’s more accurate message would be: Invest through us, and we’ll attack the reputations of selected companies, in the processing reducing their value.

Unfortunately, there probably are people for whom that would be an attractive appeal.

The “facts” used to attack Chevron are wrong, the public relations manipulation ugly, and the goals ultimately damaging to people and investors who own Chevron stock. And it’s all part of a sophisticated legal and PR campaign that gets far too little attention.

As Chevron’s general counsel, Charles James, said today in a conference call with bloggers today.

I’ve asked people to ask themselves a very simple question: If these plaintiffs thought for just one second that they were going to get an enforceable judgment out of the courts of Ecuador for some multibillion dollar amount, why this show? Why is all of this going on? Why are they attempting to pressure the investors? Why all this media stuff?

*Disclosure: Chevron is paying for several bloggers, including me, to visit the former Texaco/Petroecuador sites in the Ecuador Amazon sometime in the future. The company is not making any demands on what we write as a result. Chevron is a member of the NAM.

Chevron holds its annual shareholders meeting in San Ramon, Calif., tomorrow, and a well-organized alliance is attempting to hijack the meeting for pecuniary and political purposes. Trillium Asset Management — part of the activist “social investment industry” — is taking the lead in pushing a shareholder resolution that would require Chevron to conduct a study of its overseas operations as they relate to the host country’s health and environmental laws.

The resolution itself is an attack on Chevron’s reputation, part of a coordinated campaign meant to bully the company into settling a multibillion dollar lawsuit brought by U.S. trial lawyers; the suit, Aguinda v. Chevron/Texaco claims that Texaco (which Chevron bought in 2001) caused environmental damage in Ecuador that still harms the health of local residents. We’re written about the issue before, and Chevron has facts on its side as detailed at the company’s Chevron in Ecuador site.

But there’s a lot more at stake than just Chevron’s operations and the $26 billion in damages being demanded from the company. ($26 billion!) The proposal and protests at the shareholders’ meeting tomorrow represent U.S. trial lawyers make common cause with foreign governments, NGOs and activist groups to shake down American companies. In the United States legal system, the rule of law, standards of evidence and absence of corruption protect the interests of U.S. companies and their shareholders, but in the less developed world where anti-Americanism is potent? Pursue your case there and use it as leverage here.

As Charles James, Chevron’s general counsel and executive vice president, described the dynamic in a conference call with bloggers* today, “They take your professional reputation hostage and they try to ransom it back to you for money.” The activists groups led by Amazon Watch have scheduled a protest, and you’ll have your usual visuals of Amazonian Indians and celebrities to attract the TV cameras. An umbrella group of left-wing groups will release what they call an alternative annual report, “The True Cost of Chevron.” It’s certainly well-packaged (lots of money having been spent) accusing Chevron of environmental crimes all over the world, not just Ecuador. The attacks are becoming even more shrill.

James from the blogger call:

It’s sort of an unprecedented, new way in which the trial lawyers are trying to play the game. It’s got nothing to do with what’s happening in court, and it’s got everything to do with trying pressure companies into settling these cases and in doing so in these big, broad coalitions with people who have a community of interests — Third World, developing world governments, who are trying to bolster their image as being anti-corporate, anti-U.S., and also trying to excuse a lot of their own failings; trial lawyers, who want money; lobbyists, who want money; and NGOs who make sport out of these campaigns.

Unless people start asking about that and how it’s done, you’re just going to see more and more of it continuing into the future.

*Disclosure: Chevron is paying for several bloggers, including me, to visit the former Texaco/Petroecuador sites in the Ecuador Amazon sometime in the future. The company is not making any demands on what we write as a result. Chevron is a member of the NAM.