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Two Chevron Lawyers Indicted in Ecuador
… [T]wo [of Chevron’s] longtime lawyers…have been indicted by the Ecuadorean government. In-house lawyer Ricardo Reis Veiga and outside counsel Rodrigo Perez Pallares are accused of being part of a conspiracy to fraudulently certify that Chevron predecessor Texaco had completed the cleanup of more than 100 mines in the Ecuadorean rainforest in the 1990s. The government released Chevron from liability on the basis of those certifications. Chevron [said]… "The politically motivated indictments mark a renewal of the Ecuadorean state's attempts to disavow contractual obligations owed to Chevron from contracts signed in 1995 and 1998"…But a lawyer for the Republic of Ecuador…[said] "Chevron isn't stupid…They know there's going to be a big judgment against them in Ecuador. They want to avoid paying it. One way to do that is by saying the Ecuadorean system is corrupt and their rights were trampled."