Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

Chevron’s legal approach will go down as the most effective response to being shaken down in an extortion attempt by a shyster lawyer and a cabal of like-minded money grabbers. Never was about the people or environment of Ecuador.

“ Chevrons legal approach will go down in history as one of the most despicable”… I think you must be talking Donzinger.

Texaco may have plotted and executed the initial crime and environmental devastation but Chevron brought it to a much lower level of crass disrespect for natives and the environment. Chevrons legal approach will go down in history as one of the most despicable, focusing on everything but the issue at hand. Diverting attention and intimidating and bribing witnesses.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s. We don’t deliver to convicted criminals, even those under house arrest. Try Taco Bell.

Yup, Chevron took over Texaco to change their evil way and save humanity. All is good now. Nothing more to see here. Move along.

Oh right, that was Texaco. Chevron wasn't involved and has nothing to do with Texaco so everyone can relax. Phew.

"Chevron's goal"... good trick, as Chevron did not own Texaco at the time

Chevrons goal was to max profit and production with minimal cost and no regard for environment or people. Their plan all along was to leave the mess behind for Petroecuador and hide behind lawyers. They bailed as soon as water cuts inched up.

Cheap entertainment - throw a piece a raw meat in a room and watch the two sides fight over it. On one side we have Amazon Watch trying to argue their debunked claims and defend their leader, I Create My Own Facts, S. Donzinger. On the other side we have Chevron paying trolls to paint the company in a positive light when the fact is their own management lacks the basic ethics they try to pretend exist. After the chare holder meeting today AW will climb back in their ho-e and Chevron's trolls will hopefully go back to work and get some actual work done.

@2ixp+1gSRSy94: Why is it that you think the party that received 93% of the profits from a venture should have no responsibility for a cleanup, while the party that received 7% should be held for the full costs. Even if I were to agree on the damages (which were hugely inflated by any rational estimate), I find your analysis of culpability unbalanced.

Nowhere close to the truth. He got a few months for contempt for refusing to turn over his phone, which was outrageous and was smart to refuse. Nothing to do with the case, just a crooked judge.

There was a great deal of fraud by the plaintives in the courts, including fake samples. This the reason the lead attorney was convicted and sent to jail.

One of the specious arguments that Chevron used to try to avoid trial was to insist that the government of Ecuador had released it from any further responsibility after it agreed to remediate a small portion of its contaminated sites in 1993. This "release" was negotiated with the government while the Aguinda case was already proceeding, and it explicitly excluded such private claims against the company. For this reason, Chevron's argument has been summarily dismissed whenever they have made it in court, although they still trot it out in press releases. Additionally, the clean up on which the release was conditioned appears to have been a fraud, as samples taken during the trial revealed that the "remediated" sites are just as contaminated as ones that were never treated.

Ecuador's government (through is wholly ownered company PeteoEcuador) received 93% of the revenues generated from Texaco's oil develoment in Ecuador. Even though much of Ecuador’s share were snatched by corrupt officials, some of it benefited the country as a whole (but not the people of the Amazon region). What PeteoEcuador never did was any clean up at all, even as they continued to run the opertations for more than a decade after Texaco departed. In this late stage of field development huge water discharges occured as water invaded the wells, all of it dischaged onto the land surface. What had been already been a mess became much much worse. This and yet @2hfk+1gSRSy94 claims they had no responsibility for any of the contamination: Only Chevron is to blame. How convenient!

"unfounded claims against Ecuador and Peteoecuador"... oh really ... someone needs an education!

Lots of wild unfounded claims against Ecuador and Peteoecuador up in here. Chevron is the culprit.

Moving away from Ecuador. My situation was that I submitted a written document stating I was tired of being harassed and retaliated against for arguing with two supervisors that safety comes before efficiency. I was then not selected in the transformation event. I filed a 2nd complaint and Chevron's investigator met with me claiming to be a neutral party. I provided witnesses and documentation to support my complaint. The investigator turned up false allegations against me (made by the person who was harassing & retaliating against me. I later found, via a government agency about the false allegations. The investigator, who is a Chevron attorney, never divulged the false allegations to me. The investigation ended with a person calling me telling me that the investigation is confidential. I submitted the new discovery of false allegations against me via the Chevron hotline and received an almost immediate response that the matter had already been investigated and concluded. This despite my providing documentation to the contrary. My complaint also stated that Chevron did not comply with their own policies & procedures in dealing with my original complaint and the false allegations made against me. Presumably Chevron is protecting for a manager that is the husband of the Wells VP. So I agree, from my first hand experience, Chevron's ethics are poor at best.

@1vey+1gSRSy94: We are not doing to re-litigate this very complex case here, but suffice to say there were power moves on both sides. Donziger’s lawsuit was well funded by external investors looking for a big pay day and he was brilliant on getting celebrity PR to gin up public outrage, even if he was totally corrupt. They were able to obfuscate that PetroEcuador and the Ecuadorian government received most of the profits from this oil development and caused the worse of the mess after Texaco departed. Donziger’s was after the big fish in the room (Chevron) and thus agreed to not name the Ecuadorian government in the lawsuit (because, if he had, the case would have been a non-starter in Ecuador). No one really cared about the effected communities, as demonstrated by the fact that PetroEcuador to this day has not cleaned up a single dump pit. If the original lawsuit had been reasonable (in truth real cleanup costs were closer to a half billion, with responsivity split 15%-85% between Texaco and PetroEcuador, and the intacts of the surface pits on health were vastly overstated), then it is possible Chevron would have paid just to get Texaco's mess off the books. As it was the ask was so outrageous and so unbalanced (unreasonable) that Chevron had no choice to fight it with both barrels loaded. The case also gave a black eye to environmental litigation more generally by trying to use the legal system for investor funded returns rather than it being a case focused on resolution for those harmed. Although no one in this case smelled like roses at the end of they day, there is a good case for suggesting that it was Donziger colluding with a corrupt Ecuadorian government officals that were the most evil players, and that is exactly why Donziger went to jail.

There were actually two lawsuits. The first one was filed in New York in ~1993. As a result of this lawsuit Texaco agreed to cleanup their portion of the environmental mess that they started in 1964, 29 years after initial drilling. Without this lawsuit Texaco would never have cleaned up anything (lack of ethics). Texaco started cleanup in 1995 and concluded in 1998, 34 years after initial drilling. In 2003 another lawsuit was filed in Ecuador calling Texaco's cleanup a shame. This lawsuit is bogus and without merit and courts have agreed.

Sir, please pull your car out of the drive thru. The attendant at the window has no interest in Ecuador.

The lawsuit is bogus because PetroEcuador and the Ecuadorian government were not named as co-defendents despite the fact that PetroEcuador make the worst of the messes. The Ecuadorian government accepted payment from Texaco for a cleanup and then never did it (rather divereted these fund for other uses), and PetroEcuador continued to operate these oil fields for a decade after Texaco departed. The Ecuadorian government only let the action go forward when they were promised by the litigants a new huge payday without being themselves held responsible. A sad day for envionmental litigation in general. The storey is now over, so move on! The Ecuadorian government is responsible for clean up of the mess they made. In truth the Ecuadorian government never cared about the people impacted: They just wanted the money (the Ecuadorian government received more than 90% of the profits from that oil development).

Chevron assumed all of Texaco's obligations. Chevron is effectively and legally Texaco today. So the claim is completely bogus and misleading.

The website is accurate. Chevron never operated in Ecuador. Texaco operated down there and then left the country. It wasn’t until later when Texaco was acquired by Chevron. That bogus environmental lawsuit was just an attempt to shakedown Chevron for billions because of Texaco’s past history in Ecuador. But let’s don’t forget Texaco received a letter from the Ecuadorian government, before leaving the country, stating they left everything in good order.

Chevron never operated in Ecuador. Texico did.

Sir, Wendy’s has no franchises in Ecuador

True. If you look on the Chevron web site, they claim Chevron never operated in Ecuador. As if.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.