Commentary: US court denial of Ecuadorian judgment could be persuasive in Canadian lawsuit
“Chevron in Ecuador: Is the End in Sight?”, 22 Aug 2016 [Subscription required]
…Now that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has fully embraced Chevron Corp.’s view—that the Ecuadorean judgment against it was rotten with fraud— is there any chance that either side will give up the ghost of their case?...Pinning their hopes on Canada, the plaintiffs have stated that a “trial” will begin in September. What’s actually on deck is their motion to strike Chevron’s defenses to enforcement, and Chevron’s motion to dismiss for suing the wrong corporate entity. If those motions fail, then Chevron can argue that the Second Circuit ruling is binding or persuasive…[or] resubmit its undeniable evidence of fraud before another rational court…[T]he Union of Persons Affected by Texaco (led by counsel Pablo Fajardo) splintered from the Amazon Defense Front (allied with counsel Steven Donziger)…Ecuador owed about $100 million to Chevron from an old, unrelated arbitration. Plaintiffs had put a lien on that award…But Ecuador’s president needed to pay Chevron before he could issue $1 billion in sovereign bonds last month. The president got Fajardo to quietly release the plaintiffs’ lien so that Ecuador could pay the old debt to Chevron. When the Frente de Defense de la Amazonia got wind of what had happened, it denounced the Union de Afectados pour la Petrolera Texaco, and threatened to sue Fajardo…