Servio Curipoma Arrives in New York to Tell His Story

From a sweltering Amazonian town surrounded by former Texaco oil fields, Servio Curipoma, a cacao farmer, arrived last evening in New York City to tell the story of how an American oil company devastated his lands and drinking water, causing a public health crisis that continues to this day. Servio lost both his parents (his mother's heartbreaking story is told here) and a sister to cancer that doctors have attributed to drinking water contaminated by toxic crude waste. Since that time, Curipoma has become an active voice for his community over the past 14 years, demanding that Chevron take responsibility for the contamination that has so profoundly affected his family.

Please watch and share this short video. A brief, but powerful look into the life of one man – and another example of how Chevron (formerly Texaco) turned the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon into a crude oil wasteland.

And, if you haven't already, please sign the solidarity petition!

Servio is part of a delegation of two other inspiring leaders from the Ecuadorian Amazon, traveling on behalf of 30,000 affected people in Ecuador, to demand that Chevron finally own up to its responsibility in Ecuador buy cleaning up its toxic legacy.

Over the next week in New York, DC, and San Francisco, Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network, will be organizing public events, briefing with lawmakers, pension funds, and the media as part of an international campaign to hold Chevron accountable.

Please share this short video, and sign the solidarity petition! We hope to garner 30,000 signatures over the next week to support each and every man, woman and child affected by Chevron's toxic legacy in Ecuador. We will deliver these petitions signatures at Chevron's shareholder meeting on May 25th in San Ramon, California.

– Mitch

Open Letter to the US from the Ecuadorian Amazon: Stand with Us to Demand Justice from Chevron

Please watch this powerful Open Letter to the people of the United States from the communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon who are fighting to demand Chevron clean up the massive contamination of their rainforest home.

Then, SIGN THE PETITION in solidarity with the communities demanding justice from Chevron.

Please share this petition on facebook and twitter (and anywhere else) to help us get 30,000 signatures, or one signature for each of the approximately 30,000 men, women, and children in the Amazon who continue to suffer from Chevron's toxic legacy in the Amazon.

A delegation of Ecuadorians and supporters will deliver your statement of solidarity directly to Chevron leadership and shareholders at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 25th.

Ecuadorian Delegates Ready for Long Journey to the U.S.

In less than one week, Amazon Watch and our allies at Rainforest Action Network (RAN) will be supporting a delegation of courageous indigenous and campesino leaders as they journey from the remote Ecuadorian Amazon—area tragically affected by Chevron/Texaco’s harmful oil operations—all the way to the United States. The three delegates will travel on behalf of more than 30,000 affected people to New York, Washington DC, and finally to Chevron's backyard in the San Francisco Bay Area to demand that Chevron satisfy the judgment handed down by an Ecuadorian court ordering the company to pay to clean up its contamination, and to provide clean water and health care facilities for affected communities. Along the way, they will will meet with reporters, lawmakers, institutional investors, shareholders, and civil society allies, building support for their inspiring efforts.

The three delegates are poised to expose the wrongs committed by Chevron/Texaco, as all three have experienced the terrible legacy of the company’s operations in their own communities.

Secoya tribal leader Humberto Piaguaje has seen his tribal group decimated by horrific contamination that has resulted in forest loss, displacement, and cultural degradation—when at one time the Secoya population numbered in the thousands, now only about 350 remain.

Delegate Carmen Zambrano has witnessed the illnesses that have ravaged her community, the deaths of family members, friends, and neighbors, the murder of community members, and the raping of local women. Her own children are terminally ill and developmentally disabled.

Serbio Curipoma has lost both of his parents and a sister to cancer, attributed to the crude waste in local drinking water, and he and his remaining family members suffer from myriad health problems, owing to the fact that their home sits directly atop an unremediated covered oil pit.

All three delegates are courageously standing up to a giant corporation to demand that Chevron obey the court’s orders and pay for all the damage it has caused. While each recognizes that no amount of money will bring back the dead, they continue to work tirelessly in their struggle for justice, so that their children’s children can live a life free of contamination.

Secoya leader Humberto Piaguaje


Campesino leader Carmen Zambrano


Campesino leader Serbio Curipamo

Is Chevron Deceiving Shareholders About Its Liability in Ecuador?

Today, a significant report was released at business sustainability conference CERES in Oakland. The independent report, commissioned by Amazon Watch and our allies at Rainforest Action Network, was written by two experienced corporate governance and shareholder advocacy experts, Simon Billenness and Sanford Lewis.

The authors highlight the vast disparity between Chevron's disclosures to its shareholders and its sworn legal statements about the "irreparable damage" the company faces from potential enforcement of the $18 billion judgment against the company in Ecuador. We are sending this powerful document to California lawmakers, stock analysts, public pension funds, university endowments, institutional investors, and other public interest organizations nationwide, and it will be sure to grab the attention of many of these parties.

Amazon Watch Corporate Campaigns Director Mitch Anderson has written a post about it at the San Francisco Chronicle's City Brights blog, which I'm posting in its entirety below.

-Han, Amazon Watch

Mitch's post at the City Brights blog:

Chevron Faces Significant Risk in Amazon Controversy

Chevron Corporation, the second largest oil company in the United States, was found guilty earlier this year by Ecuadorian courts for massive environmental contamination of the Amazon and was fined upwards of $18 billion. The company has vowed to fight the verdict "until Hell freezes over."

This is an unwise approach for many reasons. First, and principally, because it is immoral. There are tens of thousands of people in the Ecuadorian Amazon who are suffering a massive public health crisis as a result of Chevron's (previously Texaco's) reckless pump and dump oil operations in their once pristine Amazon homelands. The people of Ecuador have the legitimate right to clean water and good health. Why would Chevron pour millions of dollars into a litigation and public relations strategy designed to condemn them to such misery? Secondly, it is unwise because it implies that Chevron will be fighting this lawsuit forever, mired in a costly and protracted -- and yes eternal -- legal Vietnam. Doesn't seem to make good business sense.

Today, an independent report, An Analysis of the Financial and Operational Risks to Chevron Corporation From Aguinda V. ChevronTexaco, by well-known corporate governance experts Simon Billenness and Sanford Lewis, confirms that Chevron's current scorched earth approach to the Ecuador litigation is fundamentally misguided. Released at a major institutional investor conference in Oakland, CERES, the report poses big questions around Chevron management's handling of the Ecuador disaster, concerns around the failure of the Board of Directors in executing their fiduciary duties with respect to the multi-billion liability, as well as raises fundamental questions about the wisdom of Chevron's "Hell Freeze" litigation and publication relations strategy.

According to the report, the plaintiffs in the Ecuador case have a strong case for enforcement of the Ecuador verdict in countries worldwide where Chevron has assets, which could lead to abrupt asset seizures in places like the Phillippines, Singapore, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina. The report also warns that Chevron's current litigation and public relations strategy could threaten the company's "social license to operate" around the world:

"Chevron needs both legal permission from governments and "social license to operate" from local communities where the company is bidding to exploit new oil and gas fields...the notoriety of Chevron as an irresponsible operator {could} increase opposition by governments and local communities to granting Chevron legal and social license to operate in new areas."

The report also reveals that Chevron management appears to be caught up in a duplicitous web of lies, on the one hand confessing in sworn testimony the "irreparable harm" that the Ecuador verdict poses to their business interests, and on the other hand obfuscating the risks in their public filings and statements to shareholders.

For instance, the report cites sworn testimony by Chevron Deputy Comptroller Rex Mitchell explaining that:

"the seizure of Chevron assets, such as oil tankers, wells, or pipelines, in any one of these countries, would disrupt Chevron's supply chain and operations; and seizures in multiple jurisdictions would be more disruptive. Defendants' campaign to seek seizures anywhere around the world and generate maximum publicity for such acts would cause significant, irreparable damage to Chevron. Unless it is stopped, Defendants' announced plan to cause disruption to Chevron's supply chain is likely to cause irreparable injury to Chevron's business reputation and business relationships that would not be remediable by money damages."

The report goes on:

"While Chevron has admitted in sworn legal statements that the company is at risk of "irreparable injury to [its] business reputation and business relationships" from potential enforcement of the Ecuadorian court judgment, the company has failed to characterize these risks to the company in its public filings and statements to shareholders."

As the Corporate Campaigns Director for Amazon Watch, the environmental and human rights organization that has been spearheading an international corporate accountability campaign on Chevron for the last decade, I have been following Chevron's handling of the Ecuador disaster very closely.

It was refreshing, and even a bit heartening, to read this report because it suggests that, for Chevron, doing the right thing in Ecuador - that is, funding a full scale remediation and providing health compensation for communities - will actually help the company minimize the escalating financial, operational and reputational risk that a protracted and aggressive litigation strategy would entail. Doing the right thing in Ecuador makes good business sense. Chevron management and Board of Directors should read this report carefully. I know their shareholders will. Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network are sharing the report with California lawmakers, stock analysts, public pension funds, university endowments, institutional investors, and other public interest organizations nationwide.

US judge plays global judicial police chief to help Chevron fight justice in Ecuador

A couple days ago, international human rights attorney par excellence Marco Simons of EarthRights International posted some analysis of oil giant Chevron's latest tactics to evade accountability for its oil disaster in Ecuador. In the wake of a February court ruling finding Chevron guilty of massive contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Marco looks at the various ways the company is trying to avoid paying the $18 billion dollars in compensatory and punitive damages ordered by the judge who delivered the verdict. The Chevron Pit blog beat me to blogging Marco's astute analysis, so I'm going to re-post in full their blog from yesterday. Note: Marco's last name is Simons and not Simon, as mistakenly used below.
-Han
Amazon Watch

The post, from The Chevron Pit:

"I'm not aware of any case where a court has ever even tried to restrain foreign plaintiffs from enforcing a foreign judgment in foreign jurisdictions."

"...even if Chevron wins the enforcement battle in the US, that doesn't end the matter, because the plaintiffs will go to other countries to enforce the judgment. The plaintiffs only need to win once or a few times, while Chevron needs to win everywhere."

Interesting observations from Marco Simon, Legal Director of Earth Rights International, about Chevron's effort to escape the $18 billion Ecuadorian judgment in U.S. federal court.

As Simon points out, Chevron wants an American judge to rule that the Ecuadorian judgment is unenforceable so the oil giant has a legal tool to use in foreign courts to prevent the Ecuadorians from obtaining the award by seizing Chevron's assets in foreign countries. (Chevron has no assets in Ecuador.) To get that ruling, Chevron has to jump a few legal hurdles, like -- Can an American judge tell Ecuadorians what to do, and can the American judge tell other countries' court systems what they can and can't do? Only time will tell, but Simon is exactly right when he says Chevron will have to convince dozens of countries (where Chevron has assets) that an American judge can tell their judges what to do.

Simon wrote:

"The Ecuadorians can go after Chevron in the US, but they can also try to enforce the judgment in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and dozens of other countries where Chevron operates or has assets. Not surprisingly, Chevron is working hard to prevent that….

"...Chevron's entire case is premised on the notion that Judge (Lewis) Kaplan (the American judge) has jurisdiction over the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and other members of the plaintiffs' class action. That is a highly questionable position, and one that will receive considerable scrutiny from the Second Circuit. Even if Judge Kaplan can prevent the American lawyers from proceeding to enforce the judgment, if he doesn't have jurisdiction over the Ecuadorians, he cannot prevent them from going to other countries to seek enforcement."

And, then there is the nagging issue of Chevron's asking Judge Kaplan to act as the world's judiciary police chief.

"The Second Circuit may also be concerned with the propriety of interfering with foreign countries' judicial processes. I'm not aware of any case where a court has ever even tried to restrain foreign plaintiffs from enforcing a foreign judgment in foreign jurisdictions."

Simon also reminds us that Chevron is getting what it asked for:

"Chevron has every opportunity to challenge the judgment in the Ecuadorian courts; Chevron chose to litigate in Ecuador over the plaintiffs' objection, and the Second Circuit may well hold them to that choice. In fact, in a recent decision in a related case, the Second Circuit said that Chevron was bound by its original promise to satisfy any judgments in Plaintiffs' favor, reserving its right to contest their validity only in the limited circumstances permitted by New York's Recognition of Foreign Country Money Judgments Act."

Given Judge Kaplan's comments about Ecuador, its court system and the Ecuadorians themselves, no one thinks he won't rule for Chevron. His bias is obvious. Other judges in other countries may not share his sentiments, however.

"Ultimately, even if Chevron wins the enforcement battle in the US, that doesn't end the matter, because the plaintiffs will go to other countries to enforce the judgment. The plaintiffs only need to win once or a few times, while Chevron needs to win everywhere. Even Chevron wins twenty cases, just one loss could cost the company hundreds of millions or billions of dollars," wrote Simon.