"Nobel laureates condemn 'judicial harassment' of environmental lawyer" 18 Apr 2020

Twenty-nine Nobel laureates have condemned alleged “judicial harassment” by Chevron and urged the release of a US environmental lawyer who was put under house arrest for pursuing oil-spill compensation claims on behalf of indigenous tribes in the Amazon.

The open letter ... said the treatment of lawyer Steven Donziger, whose movements have been restricted for more than 250 days, was one of the world’s most egregious cases of judicial harassment and defamation.

Donziger represents 30,000 indigenous people and small farmers who won a $9.5bn class action lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuadorean courts in 2013, as compensation for the contamination of their land by oil extraction activities. This judgment was one of the largest ever against an oil company, but not a cent of these damages has been paid to the plaintiffs...

Chevron has lobbied for his removal from bar associations and launched a countersuit accusing him of bribery and fraud, which was upheld by district judge Lewis A Kaplan in 2014. It was later reported that Chevron paid more than a million dollars for one of the key witnesses in the case – an Ecuadorean judge – to come to the United States. That witness later said he lied under oath.

In an extraordinary legal move, Kaplan then appointed private attorneys to prosecute Donziger for refusing to turn over his electronic devices after the US attorney’s office declined to pursue the case...

In a statement, Chevron said the original Ecuadorean judgment was fraudulent and there was no merit to the allegations of environmental harm. It said the international tribunal in the Hague and courts in several other countries have ruled that the Ecuadorean verdict cannot be enforced elsewhere.

The company also noted that a US court “has ordered Steven Donziger to stand trial for criminal contempt for repeatedly refusing to comply with court orders. He is currently under house arrest subject to electronic monitoring while awaiting trial. Donziger’s licence to practise law has been suspended in New York and Washington, DC for a pattern of racketeering activity in connection with the case”.