Just days ahead of a trial where he is being accused of fraud in procuring a multi-billion-dollar environmental damage award against Chevron in Ecuador, attorney Steven Donziger has been sanctioned by the judge presiding over the case. Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday said Donziger and his fellow defendants will have an adverse inference against them for failing to turn over documents in discovery to the oil company.
Donziger and two representative clients in the Lago Agrio litigation in Ecuador are facing fraud and racketeering charges from Chevron as part of the oil company’s global effort to defeat a $19 billion judgment issued in 2011. Kaplan said the defendants violated an order to compel production of documents in possession of their lawyers and agents in Ecuador—documents Chevron counsel Randy Mastro, a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, claims will help him prove the judgment was secured through corruption of the legal process in Ecuador.
