CALGARY, Canada - A major international conference focused on indigenous legal principles, the environment, and the landmark $12 billion pollution judgment won by rainforest communities in Ecuador against Chevron is scheduled to take place November 10-12 in Banff, Canada. The conference is being organized by a group of professors at the University of Calgary Faculty of Law. Indigenous leaders from North and South America, environmentalists, resource company representatives, government officials and lawyers are planning to attend. A significant part of the conference will engage with indigenous youth and grass roots peoples.
Read MoreQUITO, Ecuador - Chevron CEO Michael Wirth is facing a furious backlash from civil society and allegations of racism after his company used a secret trade arbitration court run by private lawyers to try to attack Indigenous peoples and farmer communities who won a $12 billion pollution judgment against the company. The three secret trade arbitrators – all older white males based in London and Washington – barred the Indigenous groups from presenting evidence, testifying, or even attending proceedings the Ecuadorians call “illegitimate” and a “kangaroo court” designed to help corporate polluters escape environmental liabilities.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - On the eve of protest in three cities against SLAPP-style harassment lawsuits, the main target of what has become known as the “Mother of All SLAPP Attacks” discussed the new corporate playbook for using courts to silence advocacy.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - Unable to extinguish a $12b liability won by Ecuadorian rainforest communities, Chevron and its law firm Gibson Dunn have issued a new subpoena in the U.S. that seeks emails from 57 supporters of the Ecuadorians in what lawyers call Big Oil’s “latest and most desperate” SLAPP-style attack on citizens who challenge corporate power.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - Chevron has stepped up its attacks on prominent corporate accountability attorney Steven Donziger by seeking a partial gag order designed to silence criticism of the company’s retaliation campaign after it was found to have dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - The New York bar’s unprecedented attempt to suspend prominent corporate accountability attorney Steven Donziger without a hearing after he helped Ecuadorian Indigenous peoples win a $9.5 billion environmental judgment against Chevron is based on false testimony from a paid company witness coached 53 days by lawyers at the firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, according to a bombshell report produced by one of the world’s leading forensic computer investigators.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - Paul Doyle, a corporate lawyer appointed by the New York bar to recommend possible discipline of prominent human rights defender Steven Donziger has resigned his post after the disclosure that he had helped Union Carbide escape liability in the Bhopal disaster in India that has killed an estimated 15,000 people.
Read MoreNEW YORK, NY - Top-level editors at the Wall Street Journal have ordered the removal of a letter to the editor that was slated to run July 23 defending prominent corporate accountability attorney Steven Donziger after he was attacked for winning a landmark pollution judgment against Chevron.
Read MoreNEW YORK - Support is growing from across the United States and Ecuador for prominent corporate accountability attorney Steven Donziger following the “shocking” decision of the New York bar to suspend him as a “immediate threat to the public order” without a hearing after he played an instrumental role in winning a landmark $9.5 billion pollution judgment on behalf of Ecuadorian rainforest communities against Chevron.
Read MoreNEW YORK - A New York state appellate court has taken the highly unusual step of suspending the law license of renowned corporate accountability attorney Steven Donziger without a hearing, leading to “shock” among lawyers who have followed his long-running battle with Chevron and the powerful law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher over the clean-up of the oil major’s massive pollution in Ecuador's Amazon.
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