In Canada Trial, Chevron Fighting Desperately to Hide Embarrassing Information From Public
Chevron lawyers and corporate executives are fighting desperately to prevent critical and apparently embarrassing information from spilling over into public view during the high-stakes enforcement trial over the Ecuador environmental judgment that began this week in a Canadian courtroom. In the enforcement trial...critical information in the main brief of the communities remained heavily redacted on the second day of the four-day proceeding – resulting in the odd spectacle of the villagers themselves and their supporters watching the argument of their own lawyer with no real way to completely understand what was being said...Lenczner, considered one of Canada’s foremost litigators, for weeks has been trying to convince Chevron to lift its “completely overbroad” confidentiality order, according to argument in court yesterday. Lenczner claimed all of what Chevron wants redacted from his briefs is available publicly in the company’s annual reports and securities filings and is therefore not proprietary. Lenczner also argued that Chevron is obviously scared to have all the information about the corporate control of its subsidiary in one place rather than buried in obscure documents where the public would never be able to connect the dots that prove it is lying when it claims its Canadian subsidiary, Chevron Canada, is an independent entity...