Chevron says it will not pay damages in Ecuadorean environmental case after release of video

Chevron: No payment for enviro damages in Ecuador

NEW YORK — Chevron said Tuesday that it would not pay damages, as much as $27 billion, if it loses an environmental lawsuit now before a judge in Ecuador.

The company spoke about the case a day after releasing video that it said proves that the judge in the case is corrupt.

“It is a judicial farce,” Charles James, Chevron’s executive vice president, told The Associated Press. “When you have government complicity with the plaintiffs, a weak legal system and a rush to judgment against you, the only thing you do in these circumstances is fight the enforcement.”

The judge, Juan Evangelista Nunez, said nothing in the tapes implicate him.

Chevron Corp. released a video on its corporate Web site, and YouTube as well, providing what it calls proof that it hasn’t received a fair trial. The secretly recorded video, according to Chevron, shows Nunez telling businessmen that he’s already made up his mind to rule against the company.

Evidence in the case is still being accepted.

In another video, a man who describes himself as a member of the ruling political party asked one of the same businessmen for $3 million in bribes in exchange for environmental cleanup contracts that would come after the verdict was handed down.

That official said the bribe would be divided equally between the plaintiffs, the judge and “the presidency.”

“Those tapes say that the presidency is controlling the judge,” James said.

Questions abound over why the businessmen recorded the conversation in the first place.

Borja and Hansen used tiny bugging devices in a watch and a pen that they bought from in-flight magazine SkyMall, according to Chevron. Chevron officials said they don’t know why the men made the recordings or why the videos were turned over to the company.

Chevron said it would not make the men available out of safety concerns and the two could not be reached independently.

The lawsuit stems from environmental damage committed by Texaco in the Amazon rain forest before it left in the 1990s. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001. The suit, which was filed on behalf of tens of thousands of people in the region, claims Chevron is on the hook financially for toxic spills linked to numerous cancer deaths.

Chevron said Texaco already paid to clean up the region in an agreement with the government and says it is not liable for further damages. It says that Texaco’s former partner, state oil company Petroecuador, kept polluting after Texaco departed. Few dispute that charge.

Nunez, who expects to deliver a ruling as early as October, told the AP that he was never offered a bribe. While he acknowledged meeting with the two men — an Ecuadorean with ties to Chevron, Diego Borja, and an American businessman, Wayne Hansen — Nunez said he didn’t tell them that he would rule against Chevron.

He said he met with the men as a favor to an acquaintance.

“Never, never, never have I said that it will go against” Chevron, the judge said. “They asked me if a sentence would come out. I said, ‘Yes sir, a sentence will come out.’ For or against? I have never said anything.”

The Ecuadorean government, through its embassy in Washington, said it would open an investigation.

Ecuador’s Office of the Solicitor General said Tuesday it would ask Chevron for any evidence that the company believes supports its claims. It also said Chevron’s translation of the tapes are “poor” and “misleading.”

San Ramon-based Chevron, the country’s second-largest oil company, said it received the recordings in June. James said it spent the next few months transcribing and verifying the conversations, which were mostly in Spanish.

The company added in a statement that it “has no relationship” with Hansen. Borja has a relative who does contract work for Chevron.

Associated Press Writer Jeanneth Valdivieso contributed to this story from Quito, Ecuador.