Chevron can subpoena a documentary filmmaker’s outtakes to defend a multibillion-dollar lawsuit in Ecuador, Southern District of New York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled Thursday. Filmmaker Joseph A. Berlinger, who lives in New York, will have to turn over some 600 hours of footage he compiled during the making of his documentary “Crude,” a film that was solicited by New York environmental plaintiffs lawyer Steven Donziger. Donziger, one of the lead counsel for thousands of plaintiffs in a lawsuit in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, over environmental damage and injuries from pollution caused by Texaco during oil exploration and extraction, wanted the lawsuit documented.
Chevron, now the parent company of Texaco, sought the footage for use in both the Lago Agrio litigation and in international arbitration, as well as to help two of its attorneys fend off criminal prosecutions in that country, Rodrigo Perez Pallares and Ricardo Reis Veiga.
