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Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

theintercept.com

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Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#101

Post by tptacek »

e12e wrote: post #98
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is a hell of a find.

Right, it's linked from the intercept article: > Chevron has hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication[1] to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him. [1] this is a link to the Amazonpost.com. So,is it really set up and run by Chevron for the purpose of discrediting?

It's a link to the court documents, not to whatever this site is.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#102

Post by slavik81 »

shkkmo wrote: post #49
slavik81 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He lost the appeal. From Wikipedia: > In March 2014, a United States district court judge ruled that the Ecuadorian plaintiff's lead US attorney, Steven Donziger, had used "corrupt means," including payment of almost US$300,000 in bribes, to obtain the 2011 court verdict in Ecuador. The judge did not rule on the underlying issue of environmental damages. While the US ruling does not affect the decision of the court i…

I believe you are conflating appeals. The criminal contempt of court is from August 2019, the appeal you cite is from 2016. That wiki article seems to have major quality and sourcing concerns and is not something that I would trust.

Whoops. You're right. That was about the first time he was required to turn over his computer and the contempt charge is about the second.

Wikipedia is not a great primary source (especially on subjects like this), but that bit comes from this New Yorker article, which seems trustworthy to me: https://newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/09/reversal-of-fortun...

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#103

Post by ryanlol »

Joe-Z wrote: post #47
mushufasa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.

> So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter?

Why would buying Chevron shares necessitate giving Chevron money?

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#104

Post by roca »

montalbano wrote: post #37
roca wrote: post #5

I don't know who's right here, but it is suspicious that The Intercept's article doesn't even mention the judgement for Chevron from the The Hague's arbitration panel. https://www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron/stories/documents/in...

From the article: > In 2015, when Guerra testified in an international arbitration proceeding, he admitted that he had lied and changed his story multiple times Is that not referring to the same international arbitration proceeding you mentioned?

Good point, it probably is. However, they only mention it to attack Guerra's credibility (and indirectly, Chevron), but surely it is relevant that the arbitration found for Chevron?

I have to conclude that the article is telling only one side of the story. That's OK I guess, but people need to stay aware of it and refrain from forming an opinion without more information.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#105

Post by e12e »

tptacek wrote: post #101
e12e wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it's linked from the intercept article: > Chevron has hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication[1] to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him. [1] this is a link to the Amazonpost.com. So,is it really set up and run by Chevron for the purpose of discrediting?

It's a link to the court documents, not to whatever this site is.

It's a link to the court documents, hosted at that site.

www.theamazonpost.com/wp-content/uploads/Chevron-Ecuador-Opinion-3.4.14.pdf

I'm not saying the documents aren't legit (I don't know). But it's clearly a link to that site.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#106

Post by mushufasa »

Joe-Z wrote: post #47
mushufasa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.

I'm suggesting that if you already have ownership rights in Chevron, you should tell them to stop polluting the Amazon. Which you probably do if you're invested in any S&P500 index fund, for example, even if you're not invested directly.

Incidentally, the Government of Ecuador did buy a 25% share in the Texaco Lake Agrio oil field, via Petroecuador. And they also did raid offices at various points of the longstanding lawsuit iirc.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#107

Post by pytester »

rayiner wrote: post #82
pytester wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that they suspended him without a hearing, describing him as an "immediate threat to public order" but they fucking did it anyway.

They didn't give him a hearing because he wasn't entitled to relitigate the issue of his conduct. A principle called collateral estoppel holds that if you lose on an issue in one case, you're not entitled to relitigate that same issue in a subsequent case (so long as the standards of proof are similar between the two cases). The New York Court of Appeals wasn't entitled to decide that Donzinger hadn't committed fraud…

>The only issue before the New York court in the disciplinary case was whether, taking as true that Donzinger tried to bribe a judge, etc., whether he should be suspended. That did not require a hearing

And it also relied upon the testimony of Alberto Guerra, who later admitted that he was lying and was paid by Chevron to lie:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witn...

Judge Kaplan is a corrupt piece of shit who should be disbarred and jailed.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#108

Post by dang »

pytester wrote: post #107
rayiner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't give him a hearing because he wasn't entitled to relitigate the issue of his conduct. A principle called collateral estoppel holds that if you lose on an issue in one case, you're not entitled to relitigate that same issue in a subsequent case (so long as the standards of proof are similar between the two cases). The New York Court of Appeals wasn't entitled to decide that Donzinger hadn't committed fraud…

>The only issue before the New York court in the disciplinary case was whether, taking as true that Donzinger tried to bribe a judge, etc., whether he should be suspended. That did not require a hearing And it also relied upon the testimony of Alberto Guerra, who later admitted that he was lying and was paid by Chevron to lie: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witn... Judge Kaplan is a corrupt p…

Crossing into flamewar like that is not ok here. Worse, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's against the HN guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it. We have to, because it destroys the site for the things it's supposed to be for, like curious conversation.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN in the intended spirit, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#109

Post by Joe-Z »

ryanlol wrote: post #103
Joe-Z wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.

> So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? Why would buying Chevron shares necessitate giving Chevron money?

Because that's literally what buying shares is?[0]: Giving money to the corporation so they can finance future endeavours. Yes, you may not buy shares from them directly but from some other gambler. Still, to be able to sell you shares they need to have given it to Chevron first.

[0] Please correct me if I'm unknowingly bullshitting here!

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#110

Post by pytester »

rayiner wrote: post #82
pytester wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that they suspended him without a hearing, describing him as an "immediate threat to public order" but they fucking did it anyway.

They didn't give him a hearing because he wasn't entitled to relitigate the issue of his conduct. A principle called collateral estoppel holds that if you lose on an issue in one case, you're not entitled to relitigate that same issue in a subsequent case (so long as the standards of proof are similar between the two cases). The New York Court of Appeals wasn't entitled to decide that Donzinger hadn't committed fraud…

>The only issue before the New York court in the disciplinary case was whether, taking as true that Donzinger tried to bribe a judge, etc., whether he should be suspended. That did not require a hearing

And it also relied upon the testimony of Alberto Guerra, who later admitted that he was lying and was paid by Chevron to lie:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neye7z/chevrons-star-witn....

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