Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron`s Story on Ecuador Bribery Scandal Continues to Unravel

News Outlets Expose Discrepancies in Chevron Account; Ecuador Calls for DOJ to
Investigate Possible Criminal Violations
QUITO, Ecuador--(Business Wire)--
Questions are mounting over Chevron`s continued refusal to respond to new facts
that suggest the company manufactured secret videos to undermine a civil trial
in Ecuador where it faces a $27 billion environmental liability as Ecuador`s top
lawyer called on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the oil giant for
possible criminal violations, according to news reports and representatives of
the plaintiffs.

(A complete list of Chevron`s unanswered questions about the purported bribery
scandal, compiled by the plaintiffs in the underlying civil case, is available
online at
http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/20090925-unanswered-questions.pdf.)

The New York Times on Saturday exposed a number of discrepancies in Chevron`s
initial account of a purported $3 million bribery scheme that the company
claimed implicates an Ecuador trial judge overseeing the civil lawsuit, which
will determine whether the oil giant will be forced to pay for the clean-up of
billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon.

The article also reported that Ecuador`s Attorney General, Washington Pesantez,
has called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Chevron for
possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a U.S. law that
prohibits American businesses from bribing foreign officials. Chevron`s current
management team already pled guilty to an FCPA violation in 2007 in Iraq, paying
a $30 million fine.

"As more and more facts become available, it looks increasingly like Chevron`s
`smoking gun` videos could be part of an elaborate hoax designed by the
company," said Andrew Woods, an American legal advisor to the 30,000 plaintiffs
in the underlying civil lawsuit. Woods, in light of the new evidence, again
called on the Department of Justice to conduct a full investigation and
interview all key witnesses in the case that are located in the U.S. and out of
reach of the government of Ecuador, which is conducting its own investigation.

Chevron`s potential damages in Ecuador were determined by a court-appointed
Special Master who reviewed more than 200,000 pages of evidence and tens of
thousands of chemical sampling results, most provided by Chevron. The costs
mostly cover remediation for the dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste
by Texaco (which Chevron bought in 2001) into Ecuador`s Amazon from 1964 to
1990, along with compensation for 1,401 cancer deaths related to the
contamination.

The trial against Chevron is taking place in Ecuador at the company`s request
after it filed 14 sworn affidavits praising Ecuador`s judicial system, thereby
convincing a U.S. judge to transfer the case to the South American nation. Once
the Ecuador trial began in 2003 and produced evidence that pointed to Chevron`s
guilt, the company launched a campaign to discredit Ecuador` courts of which the
video saga appears to be just the latest chapter, according to the plaintiffs.

Chevron is using three major public relations firms - Edelman Worldwide, Hill &
Knowlton, and Sard - to try to discredit Ecuador`s courts.

On August 31, just weeks before a final decision was expected in the trial,
Chevron posted the videos on YouTube that showed one of its contractors trying
to arrange a bribe with a person who claimed he was a member of Ecuador`s ruling
party to secure a clean-up contract in the event Chevron were to lose the trial.
Chevron claimed that the contractor, Ecuadorian Diego Borja, and an American
businessman, Wayne Hansen, shot the videos from micro-cameras hidden in a watch
and a pen and that they made the recordings on their own.

However, media outlets that have begun to dig further into the facts surrounding
the bribery scandal have raised several disturbing questions that seem to point
to Chevron`s deepening involvement in the planning and execution of the
operation.

The New York Times noted that there is no apparent motivation for why Borja and
Hansen would secretly record themselves engaging in conduct that exposes them to
criminal liability if not to assist Chevron`s attempt to discredit the judge in
exchange for compensation or some other benefit, which in Borja`s case involved,
at a minimum, being relocated to the United States at Chevron`s expense. The
article also pointed out that Chevron`s initial claim that the trial judge was
implicated in a bribe was not clearly backed up by the contents of the tapes,
which the judge says were edited in a manipulative fashion.

Hansen, the so-called American businessman, asserted in the tapes that he owned
a remediation company but no evidence has been found to back up the claim.
Hansen also was in Ecuador continuously for several weeks during the bribery
scandal, and left the country the day after the final video was shot, according
to immigration records.

"The lack of credibility of Hansen and Borja is becoming more apparent by the
day as gaping holes threaten to swallow Chevron`s entire story," said Karen
Hinton, a representative of the plaintiffs.

Bloomberg News Service and other media outlets previously reported that many of
Chevron`s representations about the scheme were not fully disclosive or were
outright misleading. For instance, Chevron never revealed that Borja worked for
the oil giant as a field technician during the civil trial mere weeks before the
filming of the secret videos and that the former Chevron contractor has an
office in a small building where Chevron`s local Ecuadorian legal team also
maintains its offices. Nor did the company reveal that it had secured both men
criminal lawyers and were paying their fees, apparently to ensure they were not
questioned, said Hinton.

Similarly, Chevron`s claim that Patricio Garcia (the Ecuadorian seen on the
tapes discussing the bribe with Hansen and Borja) was a government official
appears to be false. Garcia, according to several news accounts, is actually a
car salesman and his name is not among the 350,000 registered on the voter rolls
of Alianza Pais, the ruling political party in Ecuador. Garcia also has stated
to media outlets in Ecuador that he met with Borja in Chevron`s local law office
and that he was entrapped by the company.

Some of the key unanswered questions about Chevron`s role in the bribery scandal
are:

* What contacts did Borja and Hansen have with Chevron`s lawyers in Ecuador and
the United States in planning the secret video recordings?
* How much has Chevron, or its local law office, paid Borja for his services?
* Who paid Hansen`s expenses when he was in Ecuador for several weeks to shoot
the video recordings?
* What was the involvement of Chevron`s U.S.-based legal department in planning
the videos, particularly the fourth taped meeting which by Chevron`s admission
occurred after it received the first three video recordings?
* Why did Chevron ensure that Borja and Hansen are represented by criminal
lawyers? What is the company`s analysis of the criminal exposure faced by these
individuals?
* Why did Chevron ensure that Borja and Hansen were unavailable for questioning
when the company released the videos on YouTube and said it would make all
information public?
* Why has Chevron refused to release the full recordings or explain how and who
edited them?

About the Amazon Defense Coalition

The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and
five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador`s Northern Amazon region. The
mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice
through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation.

Amazon Defense Coalition
Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109
Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009