Caso Chevron

Donziger Must Surrender Passport In Chevron Ecuador Fight

Judge Lewis Kaplan said "additional coercive remedies" were necessary because Donziger, who helped secure a $9.5 billion oil pollution judgment against Chevron Corp. that Judge Kaplan later deemed fraudulent, had not purged himself of a pair of contempt orders from May.

Law360 - Andrew Strickler 13/06/2019

A New York federal judge has ordered attorney Steven Donziger to surrender his passport to pressure him to comply with court orders in a legal battle with Chevron to hand over his electronic devices.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday said "additional coercive remedies" were necessary because Donziger, who helped secure a $9.5 billion oil pollution judgment against Chevron Corp. that Judge Kaplan later deemed fraudulent, had not purged himself of a pair of contempt orders from May.

At a Monday hearing on the issue, Donziger first unsuccessfully sought an adjournment and then refused to testify. Donziger has not paid any of the coercive fines stemming from two recent contempt findings, which totaled $952,000 as of Sunday, according to the order.

"Keeping in mind that it is desirable to calculate coercive sanctions to employ as little 'coercion' as is needed to produce compliance, an appropriate next step — in view of the ineffectiveness to date of the escalating coercive fines — is to require Donziger to surrender his passport(s) pending his full compliance with the outstanding order," Judge Kaplan said.

The passport order comes weeks after Judge Kaplan said Donziger defied the discovery process and "largely has stonewalled" Chevron's efforts to determine if Donziger had complied with provisions of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act judgment banning him from profiting off the Ecuador judgment.

In an order related to a handful of Chevron contempt motions, Judge Kaplan said Donziger had raised at least $2.3 million by selling interest in the judgment to investors and "personally profited from this money that he raised, allegedly on behalf of his clients." The court ordered Donziger to sign over his claim to the Ecuador judgment and to repay some $666,000 he'd raised from investors and put into his personal accounts, gave to his wife, or used to pay his mortgage and credit card bill.

The judge also said that if he has not complied with the order by May 28, he will be on the hook for a $2,000 fine that will double every day until he complies.

The dispute is the latest flare-up in a long-running battle that started in Ecuador, where some 30,000 people said they'd been hurt by environmental pollution between 1972 and 1990 caused by Texaco Inc., which later merged with Chevron. A court in Ecuador in 2011 ordered Chevron to pay $19 billion in 2011, though the amount was later cut to $9.5 billion.

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