Steven
Donziger, the U.S. legal adviser to a group of Ecuadoreans suing
Chevron Corp., and the Ecuadoreans have asked a U.S. judge to step
aside from a racketeering case the oil company brought against the
Ecuadoreans in New York.
As a quick recap, the Ecuadoreans have
sued Chevron in long-running litigation over environmental damage in
that country’s Amazon region. An Ecuadorean court issued an $18 billion
judgment against Chevron last year, which is being appealed.
Shortly before the judgment was entered
Chevron filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, their
lawyers and Donziger in the U.S., claiming the 18-year-old litigation
was little more than an elaborate shakedown scheme.
Fast forward to today, Donziger has
asked U.S. District Judge Kaplan, who is presiding in the U.S. case, to
step aside because “the court has not hesitated to express either its
antipathy to Donziger or its partiality to Chevron’s overreaching legal
arguments.”
“These attacks on Donziger will haunt
the remaining proceedigns, casting dobut on the fairness, impartiality
and propriety of everything the court does from her on out,” said John
W. Keker, a lawyer for Donziger, and James Tyrell Jr., a lawyer for the
Ecuadorean plaintiffs, in a court filing.
“Donziger therefore requests that the
court consult its conscience and ask itself whether it can both be and
appear to be fair and impartial when adjudicating Cheveron’s remaining
claims against him.”
“The motion is unwarranted,” said Kent Robertson, a Chevron spokesman. “They’ve tried this tactic before and failed.”
Last year, Kaplan issued a preliminary
order barring the Ecuadorean plaintiffs from pursuing Chevron’s assets
outside of Ecuador. However, a U.S. appeals court in September threw
out the injunction.
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