Chevron Trying to Shield Assets from $19 Billion Ecuador Judgment

Chevron is now trying to evade paying the historic $19 billion judgment in Ecuador by claiming assets in its 73 subsidiaries around the world should be shielded from collection actions, according to The Chevron Pit blog posted by the Ecuadorian communities that won the judgment.

“This is yet another act of subterfuge by Chevron to evade its legal obligation to clean up the world’s worst oil-related environmental catastrophe,” said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.

Shareholders also would be shocked to learn that Chevron is saying one thing to U.S. courts about the Ecuador case and another to its investors in public filings, according to another blog, written by Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch, entitled Shareholder Shocker: Chevron’s Assets Frozen in Argentina, and also posted on The Chevron Pit.

In the Argentina case along with similar asset seizure lawsuits filed by the Ecuadorians in Canada and Brazil – Chevron is arguing in courts that its subsidiaries around the world should be off limits to the Ecuadorians for collection purposes, even though the parent company refuses to pay the judgment and stripped most of its assets from Ecuador.

“We now get it,” the The Chevron Pit said. “According to Chevron’s twisted logic, after fighting for almost two decades, the Ecuadorians who are suffering from cancer and birth defects have no place to collect their winning judgment.

“This is how a large oil company convinces itself that it is entitled to impunity for its human rights crimes,” said the blog, which also explained why the defense will fail along with the many other defenses Chevron has used over the long course of the litigation.

The Chevron Pit post on how Chevron is trying to use it subsidiaries to escape justice can be readhere.

The post by Kevin Koenig about how Chevron is misleading shareholders in the wake of the Argentina freeze order can be read here.