Ecuadoreans seek payout from Chevron in US court

In an epic legal battle pitting Amazon rainforest tribes against energy giant Chevron, a former Ecuadorean judge claims another judge there took a $500,000 bribe. The second judge, however, says it's all a lie.

 

"I would never do so because it would go against my principles. ... No one has paid me, nor would I accept that," said Nicolas Zambrano.

 

The unusual and at times, bizarre clash of judicial brethren has played out at a high-stakes trial in federal court in New York City that will decide whether a multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador against Chevron should be enforced in the United States. Zambrano, for reasons unclear, at one point wore a red knit cap, overcoat, scarf and gloves while on the witness stand.

 

In February 2011, Zambrano issued a $18 billion judgment against Chevron in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 30,000 Amazon rainforest residents for environmental damage caused by Texaco during its 1972-1990 operation of an oil consortium in the rainforest. Chevron later bought Texaco.

 

But Chevron has long argued that a 1998 agreement Texaco that signed with Ecuador after a $ 40 million cleanup absolves it of liability. It claims Ecuador's state-run oil company is responsible for much of the pollution in the oil patch that Texaco quit more than two decades ago.

 

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs say the cleanup was a sham and didn't exempt third-party claims.

 

Last week, Ecuador's highest court upheld the verdict there but reduced the judgment to about $ 9 billion. In New York, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A Kaplan has been hearing evidence for the last month without a jury as Chevron tries to stop collection of the award.

 

The company claims that the judgment was obtained through fraud and deceit. Kaplan is not expected to rule until weeks after the trial, which continued yesterday.

 

So far, Kaplan has heard the two judges effectively accuse each other of lying.

 

The other former judge, Alberto Guerra, said he brokered a deal for Zambrano to receive $ 500,000 to rule for the plaintiffs.

 

Guerra testified that Zambrano paid him $ 1,000 a month to ghostwrite dozens of Zambrano's court orders over a two-year period and had let him fine-tune and polish the Chevron decision because it was written by representatives of the plaintiffs and he needed "to make it look as if it had been written by a judge in the court.