Chevron : U.S. Court Affirms Contempt Rulings Against Disbarred Lawyer Behind Ecuadorian Lawsuit

(RTTNews) - Chevron Corp. (CVX) said that the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed multiple findings of civil contempt against disbarred attorney Steven Donziger, effectively bringing to a close his campaign to profit from the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment he procured in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations or "RICO" Act.

As the Second Circuit today observed, it has been finally adjudicated that Donziger "fraudulently procured the Ecuadorian Judgment against Chevron through a pattern of racketeering activity," Chevron said.

The court also noted "Donziger, among other things, bribed the presiding judge to enter a judgment in his clients' favor in exchange for $500,000 of the judgment's proceeds; coerced the court to appoint a hand-picked expert whom Donziger paid for favorable testimony; and ghost-wrote the Ecuadorian Judgment."

In 2020, the New York Appellate Division, First Department, disbarred Donziger for "egregious professional misconduct, namely, corruption of a court expert and ghostwriting his report, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and judicial coercion."

According to Chevron, U.S. courts are not alone in condemning the Ecuadorian litigation against Chevron. In a separate proceeding, an international tribunal in The Hague previously ruled that the Ecuadorian judgment was procured by the plaintiffs' legal team through egregious fraud and corruption and is therefore unenforceable under international law.

Chevron noted that the international tribunal further rejected the environmental allegations against Chevron, holding that the corrupt Ecuadorian judgment was based on environmental claims that had been already settled and released by the Republic of Ecuador years earlier following the successful completion of an environmental remediation carried out under the supervision and with the approval of the Republic of Ecuador.