Blogger Bob McCarty, who has done much good reporting on the trial lawyer/environmentalist/Ecuador lawsuit against Chevron, provides an update in the wake of videos released by Chevron that forced the Ecuadorian judge to step down. The videos also implicated the ruling party of President Rafael Correa in a fully corrupted legal process.

It seems the Ecuadorian government sees the entire litigation as a money-making venture, with Washington Pesantez, the South American country’s prosecutor general, now admitting as much.

From “Proving Amazon Watch, Others Wrong Too Easy“:

[Amidst] the furor over Chevron’s release of video tapes that appear to implicate Ecuadoran government officials — including President Rafael Correa and Juan Nunez, the judge who was hearing the case but has since recused himself — in a $3 million bribery scheme, Pesantez held a press conference Sept. 4 in his Quito office.

During that press conference, Pesantez said a number of amazing things, one of which stands out: he stated that 90 percent of the $27 billion award pending against Chevron would go to the government of Ecuador. To understand exactly what he said, read the transcript of the prosecutor general’s press conference English or Spanish.

Funny, we thought all the money was going to go to the Amazon Defense Coalition.  Were the issues not so serious — a naked shakedown of a U.S. company by an increasingly anti-American government, aided by propagandizing NGOs and U.S. trial lawyers — we’d almost laugh at the prospect of them fighting among themselves.

An excellent Washington Times editorial, “Chevron’s message to Garcia,” the Garcia being Ecuador’s attorney general, Diego Garcia, who claimed the government of Ecuador was not part of the legal case against Chevron.

The case involves purported pollution created on oil fields jointly owed by Texaco and the state-run PetroEcuador company during 20 years ending in 1992. (Chevron has since bought out Texaco.) In a 1998 final-release agreement, the government of Ecuador agreed that the fields had been fully remediated. But when Mr. Correa won the presidency, the lawsuit against the oil company suddenly and suspiciously became rejuvenated. Already, Judge Nunez has issued what Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson accurately describes as “a number of irregular rulings” against the American company.

“What the judge did was highly unethical,” [Chevron spokesman] Mr. Robertson told The Washington Times. “He needs to be disqualified and his prior rulings must be annulled.”

Ecuador’s court system has been denounced as unreliable or corrupt by the United Nations, the International Bar Association and the U.S. State Department. If this new evidence of corruption is allowed to go unpunished, the United States ought to withdraw special trade status enjoyed by Ecuador.

Right.

James Craig, a consultant for Chevron, has been prominent in responding to the PR and media campaign generated by the multibillion dollar lawsuit against the company for alleged environmental damage in Ecuador. The trial lawyers and activists pushing the legal claims have aggressively attacked Chevron’s reputation with the goal of forcing a settlement, and the company is pushing back through a wide range of media tools (e.g., video reports, the website, The Amazon Post and the official Chevron twitterer, @Chevron_JustinH).

As a measure of Chevron’s seriousness in challenging the obloquy, Craig last week appeared on “Democracy Now!,” the radio program of the conspiratorial left. Broadcast on Pacifica stations around the country, the program hosted by Amy Goodman purveys as pure of anti-business message you can find on the U.S. airwaves and Internet. It makes “The Nation” look like a capitalist roader.

Nevertheless, Craig engaged. It’s hard to imagine any of Goodman’s core audience being persuaded, but by appearing Craig showed a confidence in Chevron’s commercial and corporate rectitude. The interview also provides a good, quick overview of Chevron’s case against the attacks. From the transcript:

JAMES CRAIG: The judicial proceedings in Ecuador, just so as you understand, is a farce. And unfortunately, this is not about the welfare of the Ecuadorian people or the environment. What it is is it’s an attempted shakedown of a US company by a group of US trial lawyers who are colluding with the Ecuadorian government and who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of, really, hundreds of thousands of American workers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, whose savings are invested in Chevron through pension funds and 401(k)s. So what we’re dealing with here is a massive attempt to defraud the courts and the company and its shareholders of an enormous sum of money.

AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of 30,000 people suffering in Ecuador, the ones that the lawyers have brought this case on behalf of in Ecuador, the charges of the environmental devastation, what some call Ecuador’s Chernobyl?

JAMES CRAIG: Right. Well, the case has been brought on behalf of forty-eight Ecuadorian plaintiffs. The trial lawyers claim to represent 30,000 people, but these people are not named. These people are not identified. What I can tell you is that the lawsuit itself is brought on behalf of forty-eight Ecuadorians, OK? And the Ecuadorians have essentially signed over their rights to an NGO that’s been created by the US trial lawyers which would be the sole beneficiary of any payment or settlement in this case. So this is not really about the welfare of these people or the environment in Ecuador. (continue reading…)

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.