Chevron’s Silvia Garrigo responds to Ethical Corporation’s coverage of the issues surrounding Texaco’s court case in Ecuador
There are many complex issues at the centre of the ongoing litigation in Ecuador. We believe that Ethical Corporation’s recent attempt to provide its readers with an analysis of the case fails to objectively present the facts. [Chevron: Rumble in the jungle, Ethical Corporation, December 2009.]
Chevron wholeheartedly agrees that the residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon deserve to have the areas that were part of the former oil consortium between Texaco and Petroecuador, the state oil company, remediated.
Ethical Corporation informs readers that Texaco “claims” to have performed remediation work in Ecuador. Texaco is not alone in making “claims” that the sites for which Texaco was responsible were successfully remediated. The government of Ecuador, after scientific analysis of every site in question, confirmed that Texaco’s remediation work was effective. This fact has been repeatedly corroborated through subsequent independent scientific analyses performed for the prosecutor general’s office. Texaco’s $40m remediation covered its 37.5 % share of the consortium. Petroecuador, the owner of a 62.5% share and the operator of the fields for the last 19 years, is responsible for the remaining work.
Contrary to the summary provided in the article, Texaco did not engage in the “dumping … of toxic wastewater” during its operations. Additional research would have revealed that oil operations, including the manner in which wastewater was discharged, adhered to applicable industry standards and laws.
Ethical Corporation appears to accept without question the findings of a 2001 comptroller general report that “concluded that waste had leaked from the pits and Texaco’s cleanup fell short”. A subsequent investigation by Ecuador’s prosecutor general’s office (including scientific analysis) rejected all of the comptroller general’s findings. This should be equally relevant to readers.
The article also mentions a “study” prepared by an “independent court-appointed expert”. Had Ethical Corporation made even a cursory review of the “expert’s” publicly available CV, it would have been obvious that the gentleman in question has no prior experience in oil field operations or remediation – the very issues at question in the trial. Moreover, his independence has been repeatedly compromised by the fact that his field work was conducted by plaintiffs’ lawyers’ representatives and portions of his “study” were in fact written by their associates.
Ethical Corporation refers to the Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC) as simply the non-profit group representing the plaintiffs, making no attempt to inform readers that the ADC is named as the exclusive financial beneficiary of the lawsuit. In reality, the ADC is little more than a proxy for the American trial lawyers who have bankrolled this lawsuit since its conception. What other explanation can there be for the Amazon ADC’s complete silence when it comes to the more than 4m gallons of oil spilled by government-run Petroecuador since 1990?
The article’s characterisation of the cancer claims in the case is equally troubling. While Texaco has presented reports from renowned epidemiologists who refute plaintiffs’ claims of increased cancer cases in the Amazon, the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ own epidemiologist admitted that he could not establish a causal relationship between exposure to oil operations and cancer claims.
Finally, all of the raw videotape of the alleged bribe which Ethical Corporation referenced has been on YouTube since September 6 2009 – available to anyone to view and evaluate, including Ethical Corporation.
The trial in Ecuador was supposedly about environmental contamination – but it’s really about the contamination of the Ecuadorian judicial system, from unlawful interference by the president, to judicial corruption, to the unethical conduct of plaintiffs’ attorneys and a judicial process that turned its back on the law and due process. We believe that readers of Ethical Corporation should not miss this side of story.
Silvia M Garrigo
Manager, Global Issues and Policy
Chevron Corporation
California