Chevron and Ecuadorian plaintiffs remain entwined in a massive battle of lawyers and spinners. A new installment of the battle has spilled over onto the pages of OpinioJuris – go here and here. For a broad account of plaintiffs’ view, go here.
One wishes for a massive, neutral compilation of facts on the litigation. Michael Goldhaber at American Lawyer understands the brawl far better than most, and witten several useful posts covering facts related to various issues raised by both sides, but the posts of course cannot cover the whole story. See here, here, here, here, here and here.
I cannot help but note that in the exchange on OpinioJuris, the pro-Chevron view notably lacked a prominent disclosure that the author has been paid by Chevron for legal work on the issues – that omission is hard to understand these days after all the accurate calls for full disclosure regarding paid involvement in an issue. His post also lacks citations to supporting evidence and instead is focused on a couple of sound bites that may or may not be contradicted by other evidence not mentioned. And, the first prong of his Chevron defense is built on the essentially irrelevant fact that the oils spills, etc were generated by an acquired subsidiary instead of the parent Chevron entity. Regardless of which entity took the actions, Chevron acquired the liability and so is legally responsible, and is the entity brawling publicly with plaintiffs, with frequent posts on its web site, such as here.
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