In the latest development in the ongoing litigation between Chevron and communities of a remote Amazon region in Ecuador, a judge in Ecuador ruled in favor of a plaintiffs’ motion to reduce the number of oil field inspections in the high-profile pollution case, a decision that could hasten a verdict in the more than decade-long trial.
Unit the decision the case had been expected to go on for another three years.
In his ruling issued last week, Judge German Yanez of the Superior Court in Nueva Loja, cited with the plaintiffs’ motion to stop the inspections of more than 50 remaining production sites spread across an area as big as the US state of Rhode Island. He said the ruling “responds to the judicial logic in
which the actors are no longer required to present these evidences.” Emergildo Criollo, a plaintiff and a resident of one of the impacted communities, predicts last week’s ruling “will accelerate the process in our favor.”
The inspections are part of a lawsuit originally filed in New York in 1993 by 80 communities and five indigenous tribes, all living in the oil-rich Sucumbios and Orellana provinces of Ecuador. It claims that Texaco, now part of Chevron, did not properly clean up pollution caused by an intense period of oil production (OD Oct.30’03,p5).
Chevron argues the site was properly remediated in 1998 and points out that according to its own inspections more than 99% of soil samples collected confirm that its initial cleanup efforts fulfilled all requirements established by the government of Ecuador and state-owned Petroecuador.
The motion to stop the time-consuming inspections of production sites was initially filled by the plaintiffs. Over the past two years, the two parties have inspected 42 of the 122 sights. Not impacted by Judge Yanez’s decision are the inspections of another 14 sites (10 for Chevron and four for the plaintiffs). Chevron and the plaintiffs should complete these inspections before the end of the year.
Once the inspection phase ends, both sides will draft reports to be submitted to the judge hearing the case in Lago Agrio. Then, in the final phase of the trial, plaintiffs will perform a general evaluation of the polluted area to come up with a price for the cleanup they have been seeking. According to estimates the cleanup could cost as much as $6.1 billion.
Although shortened by yesterday’s ruling, the trial is still expected to go on for at least another 18 months.
All along Chevron has maintained that under the remediation agreement it signed with Ecuador in 1998, following its original cleanup, state Petroecuador agreed to foot the bill for any new cleanup of the contested areas. But in a suit filed by the country’s attorney general in New York federal Court earlier this month, the government contested that agreement arguing that Chevron’s original cleanup was botched and fraudulent (OD Aug.23,p4).
Chevron said Judge Yanez’s ruling violated Ecuador’s constitutional law. “We are concerned that the Superior Court has submitted to the pressure from the plaintiffs… and accepted their requests to reduce the number of sites to be inspected by the court,” said Chevron in a statement on Thursday. The company added that it would continue to “aggressively defend” itself against what it said were baseless accusations. “We are entitled to justice and due process, and will not settle for anything less.”
Plaintiff lawyer Steven Donziger said that enough sites had been inspected over the past two years for the court to render a fair judgment. “We have met our burden of proof,” he said.
According to Alejandro Ponce, another member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, Chevron “fears the outcome” of this trial and was accounting on the inspections to delay theprocess. Chevron counters that the plaintiffs fear “each new inspection” because it “further weakens their case.”
