Comment by LurkingPenguin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LurkingPenguin | Hacker News Reader

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> Not to worry about Chevron, because they did not give a single cent of the 9.5B$ to the Ecuador government, or indigenous communities who got toxic waste dumped in their drinking water, or Ecuadorians who discovered oil pools on their property. 30'000 people are represented in that case, with 1000 separate complaints.

Chevron was in Ecuador through a subsidiary that had a partnership with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, which owned the majority (62.5%) of the partnership. Chevron's subsidiary completed environmental remediation required by the Ecuadorian government and signed a settlement agreement with the government in 1995 releasing it from all environmental claims.

Oil extraction is an ugly, dirty business, and it's not uncommon for countries like Ecuador to sacrifice the health of their citizens so that state-owned oil companies and their international partners can profit, but given the facts above, maybe the Ecuadorians should look to their government and state-owned oil company for recourse?

> The case was already active before Donzinger and Chevron had already successfully bribed its way out of it.

That's a big claim. Any evidence to back it up?

> Also note that the conviction, while ruled "fraudulent", was not overturned.

Why would you expect a court in a banana republic plagued by corruption to overturn a fraudulent judgment?

> The judge who convicted Donzinger has requested him to hand over his laptop and phone to Chevron, obviously in an attempt to further discredit him.

No, he was ordered to turn over his devices so that Chevron could locate his assets. This sort of thing happens when you lose in court and the opposing party wants to collect on a damages award.

> That's a big claim. Any evidence to back it up?

There was a reason the trial was held in Ecuador only - Chevron insisted that it would be held there. That plan kind of backfired but now they insist on the corruption in Ecuador to claim the judgment is null. Make of that what you wish.

> No, he was ordered to turn over his devices so that Chevron could locate his assets. This sort of thing happens when you lose in court and the opposing party wants to collect on a damages award.

Are you saying that Chevron, a multinational making billions of dollars in profit every year, collected a lawyer's laptop and phone in order to locate and maybe sell his vacation house in Vermont or whatever for a few hundred thousand dollars? Don't be ridiculous. I am not sure he would care, his life was destroyed enough anyway (like the lives of the thousand of Ecuadorians living with environmental damage).

So in your previous comment, you lied:

> Not to worry about Chevron, because they did not give a single cent of the 9.5B$ to the Ecuador government, or indigenous communities who got toxic waste dumped in their drinking water, or Ecuadorians who discovered oil pools on their property. 30'000 people are represented in that case, with 1000 separate complaints.

Then LurkingPenguin corrected your misinformation:

> Chevron was in Ecuador through a subsidiary that had a partnership with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, which owned the majority (62.5%) of the partnership. Chevron's subsidiary completed environmental remediation required by the Ecuadorian government and signed a settlement agreement with the government in 1995 releasing it from all environmental claims.

Then you replied without admitting your false statement, and his comment remains downvoted.

This whole discussion is a prime example of how unfair and biased most people are. It's a wonder any semblance of justice is ever done in this world.

Where did I lie?

This is what Chevron-owned Texaco has done in the 90's :

> Chevron has argued that Texaco spent $40m ($31m) cleaning up the area during the 1990s, and signed an agreement with Ecuador in 1998 absolving it of any further responsibility.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45455984

This is the real corruption here. No way to make a thorough clean-up of 16 billion gallons of toxic waste water with that amount of money, let alone compensate the victims. Do you think this is justice? Do you think this agreement didn't deserve to be overturned? Is that what you're defending? Meanwhile Chevron's lawsuit against Donzinger ended up in a several million dollars fine against a single individual.

Indeed, it's a wonder any semblance of justice is ever done in this world.

> This is the real corruption here. No way to make a thorough clean-up of 16 billion liters of toxic waste water with that amount of money, let alone compensate the victims. Do you think this is justice? Do you think this agreement didn't deserve to be overturned?

This is how things work in banana republics. The state sacrifices the health of its citizens for the gain of the state, which basically operates for the benefit of the political elites.

State-owned oil companies partner with oil majors, usually because they lack the expertise and capital to exploit their own resources.

In this case, the state-owned oil company owned 62.5% of the consortium. When Chevron's subsidiary exited, it made an agreement with Ecuador under which Chevron's subsidiary performed the environmental remediation the state required and was released from future environmental claims.

This is really straightforward legally. There is no legitimate legal basis for this agreement to be overturned, which is why multiple courts have refused to recognize the judgment, and why multiple countries, including Canada, Argentina and Brazil, have refused to allow collection of Chevron assets in their countries upon this judgment.

If international law allowed corrupt courts to overturn valid legal agreements for any reason, or no reason, it would threaten the stability of the global economy and the economies of banana republics like Ecuador would be even more avoided than they already are, which would also hurt the Ecuadorian people.

The Ecuadorian people affected by this situation should first and foremost be angry at their corrupt government.

> Meanwhile Chevron's lawsuit against Donzinger ended up in a several million dollars fine for a single individual.

Because the court found that he used illegal tactics (fraud, bribery, etc.) to obtain a judgment in Ecuador. Injustice, real or perceived, does not make another injustice permissible.

>Because the court found that he used illegal tactics (fraud, bribery, etc.) to obtain a judgment in Ecuador. Injustice, real or perceived, does not make another injustice permissible.

Are you saying there's been lied about the various contacts chevron had with this witness and about him admitting to falsification of his testimony?

If I'm remembering this case correctly, Donzinger's own expert paid by his side even concluded that the toxic waste they were trying to get Chevron to pay for had to have been dumped after Chevron's involvement had ended when the subsidiary was solely owned by the Ecuadorian government, he withheld that evidence from the court, and there were internal documents from the discovery process confirming this. It's just that people's preconceptions about evil oil companies screwing indigenous communities get in the way of thinking about whether it's actually true.

Can you back this up with some documentation please? Did that expert testify?

> It's just that people's preconceptions about evil oil companies screwing indigenous communities get in the way of thinking about whether it's actually true.

But even if I believe what you said, that preconception would still be true. It would just be a state-owned oil company instead of Chevron. So why are you saying that here?

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