Stacking the Deck Against Chevron in Ecuadoran Lawsuit
Richard Cabrera, author of a report upon which a 16-year-old $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador is based, was the subject of a court filing recently in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. It seems that officials at the oil giant based in San Ramon, California, found new “dirt” on the Ecuadoran businessman.
Newly discovered information revealed by Chevron shows Cabrera — the man hired as an “independent expert” by plaintiffs’ lawyers to perform inspection work in what could turn out to be the largest legal judgment in history — is the majority owner of an oilfield remediation company that stands to gain financially from any judgment against Chevron. Due to the remediation company’s relationship with Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, Chevron called upon the court to immediately reject the work of Cabrera on the grounds that he knowingly hid his relationship and stands to gain from what was supposed to be unbiased work for the court.
Cabrera’s recommendations and independence were already compromised prior to the discovery of his conflict of interests:
• The Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC), the named financial beneficiary of the lawsuit, directly and improperly paid Cabrera more than $200,000 for his work.
• Sections of Cabrera’s $27 billion claim are copied word-for-word from documents written by Amazon Defense Front lawyers.
• Photographs and video show representatives of the ADC conducting Cabrera’s field work as well as preparing soil and water samples for Cabrera, who had promised to carry out his work independently.
• Nearly 90 percent of Cabrera’s $27 billion figure is allocated to issues that he was not directed to examine and that are unrelated to the actual claims in the Ecuador lawsuit.
• Cabrera assessed more than $9 billion as compensation for cancer deaths without providing any medical evidence, or even the name of a single alleged victim or family member beneficiary to support his recommendation.
• Cabrera recommends Chevron pay more than $8.4 billion for what he deems “unjust enrichment,” despite the fact that Texaco Petroleum — merged with Chevron in 2001 — earned less than $500 million in profits during the life of the consortium while the government of Ecuador received in excess of $24 billion, more than ninety percent of the total revenue generated by the consortium. Moreover, there is no basis in Ecuadorian law for such an award.
• Cabrera assessed $3.2 billion for groundwater remediation and $428 million to improve potable water systems even though he did not take any samples from streams, rivers, municipal water sources or drinking water wells, and states in his own report that he did not have enough data to develop a groundwater remediation plan.
• Cabrera recommends more than $2.7 billion for pit remediation, averaging more than $3 million per pit. This figure is vastly inflated compared to the actual cost of $85,000 per pit for Petroecuador’s recent remediation work that has been implemented to the full satisfaction of the government. Proper remediation, therefore, of every pit that Petroecuador is obligated to clean up would cost well under $100,000,000.
• Cabrera claims $1.7 billion in damages for oil infrastructure sites that have been in constant use by Petroecuador for nearly two decades and substantially expanded by Petroecuador since Texaco Petroleum’s departure in 1992.
• Cabrera assessed more than $1 billion in soil remediation for sites he never visited.
Crude Oil are local action polarization of north and south pole of earth crust,which the magnetisation of hydrosphere effects the dust and sands in lithospher and the liquid substance that occurs on beneath the atmosphere is called petroluem ,which are like local actions in D.C battery either circuit when weakened by A.C current that drips a substance which alkaline in nature and an acidic ahydrocarbonated water on +/- charges on ions in cathode and anode cover of the battery which is like oil and gas well platform that is extractive while it drips and minned with exploration gadgets in automotive and machine systems.Such principle battery undergo as local action occurs on earth structured to form and build which can increase efficiency of animal life when multiplicity of hydrocaborn are minned and used as source of fuel.
The equal activities performed with D.C battery interface to A.C current is content of the hydrocarbonated base,acidic or alkaline liquid that drips on it when local action polarises occures which is the same in oil and gas fields in onshore or offshore extration of crudes in petroluem industry.
“BIAMOS” all your Igbo language translators knows it is existing and NIgeria security agencies means and is acronym of Biafra Mobile service,which is a telecommunication firm called BIAMOS “BIAFRA MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES”.
Nzewi says What?
The most shocking part on this case i read last year was the pictures they provided that claimed damage were on wells owned by Petro Ecuador and not even Old Texaco properties. That is like going to court for your neighbors car wreck.
The lawsuit against Chevron is a grand shakedown. Contrary to popular misinformation, oil is not the great polluter it has been made out to be. Roads are paved with it. People grease their hair with it and they even put it on their babies’ behinds. Oil is bio-degradable. Fly over the Ecuadorian jungle and one will see that it is as green as ever. Whatever oil Texaco spilled there has long since been consumed by the organisms that live there. Mr. Cabrera should be regarded the same as those charlatans who were and are promoting the fraud of global warming.
It was Texaco and Corrupt Government officials that caused this damage from mid 1960′s until the 90′s. There are various recorded spills, pipe bursts, and basic dumping of chemical waste into large pits and then covered with soil. This is without contention.
Petroleum in its natural state is not a polluter, obviously it comes from the ground and goes back in. The problem is when Petroleum is processed, man made chemicals used in the processing are not natural so its disingenuous to state (man made) chemical spills are absorbed by Nature. If that was the case we would not have environmental damage of any type.
Chevron merged with Texaco knowing its liabilities and debts, and the lawsuit was already in Motion. There are about a dozen Chevron Bloggers writing in an organized public relations move, which is good short term strategy but will fail in the long run.
These stories written by bloggers only bring more research into what actually occurred, and who is at fault. The best long term strategy is for Chevron to complete Due Diligence on its mergers and acquisitions beforehand, If a company has these types of lawsuits to firewall the lawsuit away from the parent company. This is a good example of extremely poor legal work on Chevrons part in merging with Texaco.
The only long term solution is to clean up the mess left behind. Maybe the lawyers that Ok’d the merger could put some work clothes on, get out to ecuador and find out there is no substitute for hands on research.
Corrupt government extortion. Pure and simple. Chevron’s only mistake is to be worth more than Ecuador. Next subject.
Alex,
The law suit is for the cleanup of raw petroleum in an oil field.
The Ecuadorian oil company wants Chevron to clean up Petroecuador’s oil spills and the government of Ecuador wants more money.
Alex,
Texaco did have a small refinery in Lago Agrio to produce gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to run the equipment, vehicles, and electric generators, but it didn’t manufacture chemicals.
Big oil has gotten a lot of undeserved bad press, but they are good corporations. They provide us with gasoline for our cars and that is good. They also pay good dividends to their shareholders.
That you see them as villains and a greedy grifter like Richard Cabrera as a hero makes you seem to be lacking of reason.
If you have a refinery, then your using man made chemicals to aid in the processing of petroleum, if you don’t understand how petroleum processing works, but there is plenty of information available pretty much everywhere.
Chevron bloggers; they have their agenda, who cares.They are not lawyers or have experience with petroleum processing, they are part of a public relations campaign, more power to them, fight the good fight. In the end Chevron will settle out of court, or simply not pay the awarded amount.
The fact is this case was argued to be held in Ecuador, AFTER A NEW YORK JUDGE DISMISSED THE LAWSUIT, Texaco won, and then took it right back into Ecuador, stupid move. Chevron should have investigated this merger with much more diligence and firewalled this lawsuit. It was bonehead move by Chevron Lawyers, this is my main point.
Patrick of Atlantis; dont make assumptions, they make an donkey out of those that do. Could care less about richard cabrera. We manufactured components for the Oil industry for several decades, I know far more than you about petroleum processing and petroleum companies and what they are capable of, where they cut corners, and people that lost their lives because they wont spring for maintenance parts until failure. There are many dirty little secrets in every industry, Oil has theirs. its like any other large business driven by profit. No better, No worse.
Chevron made huge mistake not understanding how a lawsuit in the middle of jungle in small country can spiral into a public relations nightmare. Their legal department performed terribly, did not utilize good judgement and the company as a whole is paying the price for a few overpaid legal guns thoughtlessness.