Chevron Casts Stones...

With self-righteous drama Chevron continues to attack Ecuador's legal system as "corrupt" and a place where it cannot obtain a fair trial. Yet to avoid a trial in the United States, where the case originally was filed in 1993, Chevron submitted fourteen sworn affidavits to a U.S. federal judge praising the fairness of Ecuador's courts and stipulated it would be bound by the jurisdiction of the Ecuadorian court as a condition of the case being transferred there.

The depth (or lack thereof) of Chevron's pious stance is seen for what it is in this 1972 Texaco memo entitled "Reporting of Environmental Incidents" from Texaco’s Chairman of the Board, R.C. Shields. The memo provides new instructions to the corporation’s Acting Manager in Ecuador, M. E. Crawford, as to what constitutes Texaco’s definition of a major oil spill. It is one which "attracts the attention of the press and/or regulatory authorities" - not one in which rainforest residents´ water supplies are rendered undrinkable or their health seriously affected. A clear indication of a cover-up of known wrongs is the note at the end of the memo requiring that all previous reports of oil spills be destroyed.

Finally, in an indication of how Chevron's word is far from being as good as its bond, the oil company's spokesperson, Kent Robertson, has announced that Chevron has no intention of abiding by its promise to a U.S. federal court that it would be bound by the jurisdiction of the Ecuadorian court.

So much for Chevron's superior corporate greenwashing virtue.