In the Matter of an Arbitration Under the Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
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IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION UNDER THE RULES OF THE UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW ___________________________________________________________________________ CHEVRON CORPORATION and TEXACO PETROLEUM COMPANY, CLAIMANTS, v. THE REPUBLIC OF ECUADOR, RESPONDENT. ___________________________________________________________________________ CLAIMANTS’ REPLY TO RESPONDENT’S SUPPLEMENTAL TRACK 2 COUNTER-MEMORIAL ___________________________________________________________________________ January 14, 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 II. This Tribunal Has Jurisdiction over Claimants’ Denial of Justice and BIT Claims ......... 10 III. The Lago Agrio Judgment Is a Denial of Justice .............................................................. 16 IV. The Lago Agrio Judgment Is Fraudulent and Corrupt ...................................................... 17 A. Claimants Proved that the Plaintiffs Ghostwrote the Lago Agrio Judgment ........ 20 1. The Judgment Copied from the Plaintiffs’ Unfiled Work Product ........... 20 2. No Evidence Exists that Zambrano Had Legitimate Access to the Plaintiffs’ Unfiled Work Product in Preparing the Judgment ................... 33 3. The Examination of the Zambrano Hard Drives Revealed Additional Examples of Copying from Plaintiffs’ Internal Unfiled Work Product ............................................................................................ 40 4. The Examination of the Zambrano Hard Drives Has Provided Additional Forensic Proof that the Lago Agrio Judgment Was Ghostwritten .............................................................................................. 42 5. Fajardo’s Emails of December 2010 and January 2011 Do Not Disprove the Ghostwriting of the Lago Agrio Judgment .......................... 60 B. The Witness Testimony and Other Evidence Confirm the Fraud and Corruption Endemic to the Lago Agrio Case and Judgment ................................ 61 1. Witness Credibility Is for the Tribunal to Determine ............................... 61 2. Zambrano Was Not “Ill-prepared” or “Confused”: He Lied ................... 65 3. Ecuador Cannot Explain Away Zambrano’s Total Lack of Familiarity with Important Aspects of the Judgment ............................... 68 C. The RICO Decision Is Informative and Persuasive .............................................. 71 D. Chevron Did Not Have Access to Any of the Plaintiffs’ Internal Files Located in Ecuador ............................................................................................... 72 V. The Lago Agrio Judgment Is Legally Absurd .................................................................. 76 A. Ecuador Concedes that the Judgment Attributes Petroecuador’s Post- Consortium Impacts to Chevron ........................................................................... 76 B. The Lago Agrio Judgment Improperly Amalgamates TexPet, Texaco, Chevron, and All of Chevron’s Worldwide Subsidiaries ..................................... 80 C. Other Legal Absurdities: Extra Petita, Joinder, and Retroactivity ....................... 83 VI. The Lago Agrio Judgment Is Factually Absurd ................................................................ 87 A. Ecuador and its Environmental Experts Ignore the Settlement Agreement and Subsequent RAP Process, Which Renders Their Opinions Invalid ............... 91 i 1. The Settlement Agreement Defines the Scope of TexPet’s Environmental Liability ............................................................................ 93 2. TexPet Completed its RAP Obligations as Confirmed by the Final Release ...................................................................................................... 98 3. Ecuador Also Ignores Petroecuador’s Post-Settlement Impacts ............. 101 B. Ecuador’s Environmental Investigation Neither Supports the Judgment nor Proves TexPet’s Liability .................................................................................... 103 1. Ecuador’s Experts Do Not Support Ecuador’s Assertion that the Judgment Is Reasonable .......................................................................... 103 2. Ecuador’s Site Investigation Is Based on a Biased and “Worst Case” Scenario ........................................................................................ 105 3. Ecuador’s Experts’ Opinions Regarding Soil, Sediment and Water Contamination are Based on Methodologies that Are Unaccepted in Environmental Sciences ...................................................................... 107 4. Ecuador’s Experts Do Not Establish Any Health Risk, Much Less the Healthcare System (US$1.4 billion) and Excess Cancer (US$800 million) Damages in the Judgment .......................................... 114 5. Ecuador and its Experts Do Not Support the Judgment’s Ecosystem Damages ............................................................................... 120 C. The Judgment Is Not Supported by the Lago Agrio Record .............................. 122 VII. The Lago Agrio Judgment Is Based on Gross Due Process Violations .......................... 124 A. Cancelling the Judicial Inspections Prevented Chevron from Presenting a Full Defense ........................................................................................................ 125 B. Appointing Cabrera Violated Ecuadorian Procedural Law ................................ 128 C. Refusing to Address Chevron’s Essential Error Petitions Breached Ecuadorian Procedural Law ................................................................................ 131 VIII. The Appellate Decisions Have Failed to Correct the Denial of justice .......................... 133 A. The Appellate Court Did Not Conduct a De Novo Review of the Proceedings Because it Failed to Properly Review the Record, it Refused to Consider Chevron’s Fraud and Corruption Arguments, and it Did Not Make Any New Findings of Fact or Law ........................................................... 134 1. The Appellate Court Expressly Excluded Key Evidence from its Purported Review of the Record, thus Failing to Conduct an Actual De Novo Review of the Proceedings ...................................................... 134 2. The Appellate Court Failed in its Duty to Address Chevron’s Fraud Allegations Making Any Purported De Novo Review of the Proceedings Illusory................................................................................ 136 3. The Appellate Court Did Not Make Any New Findings of Fact or Law, Which is Inconsistent with a De Novo Review .............................. 139 ii 4. The Lago Agrio Record Lacks Integrity and Any Judgment Premised on it Is Tainted by Fraud and Corruption ................................ 142 B. The Cassation Court Also Failed in its Duty to Address Chevron’s Fraud Allegations .......................................................................................................... 144 C. The Appellate Court and the Cassation Court’s Refusal to Consider Chevron’s Fraud Evidence Constitutes a Denial of Justice ................................ 147 D. Ecuador’s “Appellate Cleansing” Argument Is Part of a Larger Scheme Designed to Circumvent Chevron’s Overwhelming Evidence of Fraud and Corruption ........................................................................................................... 150 IX. The Lago Agrio Judgment is Attributable to Ecuador .................................................... 151 X. There Is No Further Justice to Exhaust in Ecuador ........................................................ 159 A. Only Those Remedies that Provide a Reasonable Possibility of Effective Redress Need Be Exhausted ............................................................................... 160 B. There Are No Remedies in Ecuador that Provide Claimants a Reasonable Possibility of Effective Redress .......................................................................... 165 C. The Collusion Prosecution Act (CPA) Is Not an Effective Remedy .................. 166 D. Ecuador’s Courts Lack Independence and Impartiality and Cannot Provide Claimants with an Impartial Tribunal ................................................................. 167 1. Ecuador’s Constant Reforms to its Judiciary Have Weakened it as an Institution and Made it More Vulnerable to External Pressures ........ 170 2. President Correa’s Administration Continues to Threaten the Judiciary .................................................................................................. 174 3. Reputable Authorities Confirm Claimants’ Conclusions Regarding the Ecuadorian Judiciary ......................................................................... 177 XI. Ecuador’s Conduct Breached the BIT’s Standards of Treatment ................................... 184 A. Claimants’ Treaty Claims Are Independent of their Customary International Law Denial of Justice Claim ......................................................... 186 B. The BIT Provides for Standards of Treatment Autonomous from and in Addition to the Customary International Law Minimum Standard .................... 190 C. Ecuador’s Due Process Violations Breach the BIT Standards of Protection ...... 198 1. Ecuador’s Due Process Violations Breach Both the Effective Means and FET Standards ...................................................................... 198 2. The Appellate Court’s Failure to Investigate the Evidence of