"Chevron's Star Witness Admits to Lying in the Amazon Pollution Case", 26 Oct 2015

In March of last year…[a] New York federal judge, Lewis Kaplan, ruled that a $9.5 billion Lago Agrio judgment leveled against the company by the small Andean country's highest court, was obtained by way of fraud and coercion…The case largely hung on Chevron's star witness, Alberto Guerra, a former Ecuadorean judge who has admitted to receiving substantial amounts of money and other benefits to cooperate with Chevron…But in testimony given before the international tribunal, released today by the government of Ecuador…Guerra has now admitted that there is no evidence to corroborate allegations of a bribe or a ghostwritten judgment, and that large parts of his sworn testimony, used by Kaplan in the RICO case to block enforcement of the ruling against Chevron, were exaggerated and, in other cases, simply not true…"These transcripts make clear that Chevron proved its case before the International Arbitration Tribunal," said Morgan Crinklaw, spokesperson for Chevron. "Witness and expert testimony confirmed that the Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron was ghostwritten by Steven Donziger and his team and that the Ecuadorian government is responsible for any further remediation."…