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Year 18 of Ecuador vs. Chevron Pollution Dispute
On Friday, Ecuadorean Judge Leonardo Ordonez, who currently presides over the case where indigenous plaintiffs seek to hold Chevron Corp. liable for pollution of the Amazon River Basin, closed the evidentiary phase of the trial, as plaintiffs released a new damages recommendation of $90 billion to $113 billion. Chevron has sought to discredit the damages figure previously embraced by plaintiffs….by attacking the credibility of the court-appointed expert who recommended the figure…[A]…federal magistrate granted a motion by Ecuador for discovery…in aid of a foreign tribunal, and ordered the deposition of the man who produced the videotape that Chevron has cited as evidence of judicial prejudice and corruption. It was a turning of the tables for Chevron, which has won 1782 [discovery] motions from coast to coast.