Letter to Ecuador's Prosecutor General
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JONES DAY 51 LOUISIANA AVENUE, N.W .• WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001.2113 TELEPHONE + 1.202.8793939 • FACSIMILE: +1.202.6261700 Direct Number: (202) 879-3924 [email protected] December 20, 2011 VIA HAND DELIVERY Dr. Galo Alfredo Chiriboga Zambrano Prosecutor General of Ecuador Av. Eloy Alfaro N32 250 y Republica Quito, Ecuador Dr. Over H. Jaramillo Jaramillo Prosecutor ofSucumbios No.4 Edificio de la Fiscalia de Sucumbios Calle Manabi entre lOde agosto y Venezuela Ciudad de Nueva Loja Re: Evidence of Judgment Fraud in Lago Agrio Lawsuit Dear Drs. Chiriboga and Jaramillo: As counsel for Chevron Corporation, J have written to the Prosecutor General's Office for more than a year with evidence of unlawful conduct by the plaintiffs' representatives in connection with the ongoing civil case in Lago Agrio against Chevron Corporation. The previously submitted evidence proves that plaintiffs' representatives covertly worked with the presiding judge, Nicolas Zambrano Lozado, to draft the judgment itself. I write again to provide further evidence implicating plaintiffs' representatives-including Steven Donziger, Pablo Fajardo, Juan Pablo Saenz, Julio Prieto, and Luis Yanza-along with Judge Zambrano Lozado, and to inquire why, despite the seriousness of this evidence, it has yet to receive any investigation in Ecuador. I Fraud in the Judgment As I have previously relayed, there is substantial and unrefuted evidence that the February 14, 2011 judgment against Chevron is fraudulent. Newly discovered evidence further confirms the undisputed fact that the author(s) of the judgment copied plaintiffs' internal, unfiled work product, including correspondence, memoranda, charts, and environmental databases. This pattern of the judgment's repeated use of untiled material prepared by plaintiffs' representatives, I Most ofthis evidence was attached to my September 22,2011 letter, and all evidence has been or will presently be filed with the Lago Agrio court. ALKHOBAR • ATLANTA • BEIJING • BOSTON • BRUSSELS • CHICAGO • CLEVELAND • COLUMBUS • DALLAS • DUBAI FRANKFURT • HONG KONG • HOUSTON • IRVINE • JEDDAH • LONDON • LOS ANGELES • MADRID • MEXICO CITY MILAN • MOSCOW • MUNICH • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • PARIS • PITTSBURGH • RIYADH • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • sAo PAULO • SHANGHAI • SILICON VALLEY • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TAIPEI • TOKYO • WASHINGTON JONES DAY Dr. Galo Alfredo Chiriboga Zambrano Dr. Over H. Jaramillo Jaramillo December 20, 2011 Page 2 including slavish repetitIOn of the mistakes in that material, suggests that there was no independent or critical analysis ofthe materials provided by the plaintiffs' team to the Court. Chevron has most recently found that, in June 2009, Mr. Fajardo emailed Messrs. Donziger, Saenz, and Prieto saying, "Colleagues, take a look at this decision. I think it works very well jor US.,,2 He then copied into the body of the email a short memo from a not-yet identified third party and a "transcri[ptionj" of a published Ecuadorian court opinion.3 That transcription contains numerous mistakes not found in any published version of the court opinion itself.4 The judgment repeats all of these mistakes, exactly, as well as a citation error Mr. Fajardo made.s In the continued absence of any explanation by the plaintiffs' representatives, this and other evidence discussed below compel the conclusion that Mr. Fajardo and his co conspirators committed judicial fraud in participating in the drafting of the judgment in their favor, and that Judge Zambrano committed prevaricato by colluding with them to issue the fraudulent judgment. The February 14,2011 judgment also refers to several test samples by names that are not found in the record, but rather in private spreadsheets created by the plaintiffs, which contain information from the plaintiffs' own database. Because of this irregularity, my client retained Michael Younger, a preeminent electronic forensic investigator, to analyze these materials. Mr. Younger concluded that many of the sampling results named in the judgment came not from the judicial-inspection reports tiled with the court, but from plaintiffs' own private database, which was never submitted in the court record. 6 In his June 10, 2011 report, Mr. Younger reaffirms this conclusion. He concludes that several key figures in the judgment, such as the number of supposed earthen pits in the concession and the percentage of samples allegedly showing high levels of contamination, were likely computed using the unfiled Selva Viva database. 7 That is to say, the judgment is not based on the case record, but instead on the opposing party's unfiled and demonstrably inaccurate database. 2 Email from Pablo Fajardo to Steven Donziger et aI., dated June 18,2009 at 2:27 p.m., attached as Annex A (DONZ00051504). 3 Email from Pablo Fajardo to Steven Donziger et aI., dated June 18,2009 at 2:27 p,m., attached as Annex A (DONZ00051504). 4 Compare Highlighted Email from Pablo Fajardo to Steven Donziger et aI., dated June 18,2009 at 2:27 p.m., attached as Annex S, with Highlighted Copy ofAndrade v, CONELEC, attached as Annex C. 5 Compare Highlighted Email from Pablo Fajardo to Steven Danziger et aI., dated June 18,2009 at 2:27 p.m., attached as Annex S, and Highlighted Copy ofAndrade v. CONELEC, attached as Annex C, with Highlighted Excerpt from Page 186 ofthe Judgment, attached as Annex D, showing overlap with the Fajardo Email and variation from the published CONELEC case. 6 Declaration of Michael L. Younger, Feb. 23, 2011, attached as Annex 19 to the Appellate Alegato. 7 Expert Report of Michael L.Younger, June 10,20 II, at 14-17, attached as Annex 4 to Chevron's motion filed July 26, 20 II at 5:48 p.m. With respect to the pit count used in the judgment, Younger concludes that the source ofthe data could be either the Selva Viva database or the fraudulent Cabrera Report. Id. at 16-17. JONES DAY Dr. Galo Alfredo Chiriboga Zambrano Dr. Over H. Jaramillo Jaramillo December 20, 2011 Page 3 The judgment replicates errors contained in the plaintiffs' database. For example, the judgment claimed "alarming" levels of mercury present at certain sites. But the data in the official record shows those samples as having no mercury above detectable limits. The error came from the plaintiffs' internal database, which had separated the "less than" symbol from the sampling results (e.g., "< 7"), so that what was a negative result looked as if it were positive. As Mr. Younger concluded, "the data points cited in the Sentencia were copied, cut-and-pasted, or otherwise taken directly from [the plaintiffs I internal jiles]."s Additionally, the judgment replicates errors in the database attributing data to the wrong experts and confuses measurement 9 units (for example, incorrectly listing John Connor as an expert for Lago Agrio CentraI ). Based on these and other errors, Mr. Younger concluded that the untiled "Selva Viva Data Compilation was likely the source ofnumerous data points cited in the Lago Agrio Court Decision. ,,10 Chevron also discovered further evidence of fraud by comparing the language of the judgment with a draft inemorandum authored by plaintiffs' attorney Juan Pablo Saenz and other members of plaintiffs' legal team around November 2007 regarding Chevron's alleged merger with Texaco. Upon comparing these two documents, linguists Professor Teresa Turell and Professor Robert Leonard found whole blocks of text in the judgment that match exactly or very closely the language in the draft memorandum. II In no fewer than fifteen instances, significant portions of the Saenz memorandum, including entire sentences, appear verbatim or nearly verbatim in the judgment.12 For example, text from the Saenz memorandum is pasted directly into page 24 of the judgment; the text appearing in both the judgment and the Saenz memorandum is bolded for your convenience. 13 Jude.ment at 24 Saenz Memorandum at 3-4 AI igual que Shields, ha quedado claro en el AI igual que Shields, Bischoff participaba expediente que Bischoff participaba activamente en las complejas cadenas y activamente en las compleias cadenas V procesos de toma de decisiones que 8 Expert Report of Michael L.Younger Declaration, June 10,2011, ~IV at 17, attached as Annex 4 to Chevron's motion filed July 26,2011 at 5:48 p.m. 9 Declaration of Michael L. Younger, Feb. 23,2011, at 9, attached as Annex 19 to the Appellate Alegato. 10 Id. at 9. II Teresa Turell, Expert Witness Report on Disputed Authorship ofthe Text: Sentencia: Juicio No. 2003 0002, Juez Ponente: Ab. Nicolas Zambrano Lozada, June 28, 2011, attached as Annex 2 to Chevron's motion filed July 26, 2011 at 5:48 p.m.; Report of Robert A. Leonard, June 27, 2011, attached as Annex 3 to Chevron's motion filed July 26, 20 II at 5:48 p.m.; Memorandum attached to the email from Juan Pablo Saenz to Pablo Fajardo and others, dated Nov. 15,2007 at II :24 a.m., attached as Annex 23 to the Appellate Alegato (DONZ-HDD-O 142503 25). Our review ofthe Lago Agrio record indicates that this memorandum was never filed with the court. 12 Declaration ofSeth A. Leone, dated May 2, 2011, attached as Annex 22 to the Appellate Alegato. 13 Compare Judgment issued by the Deputy President ofthe Provincial Court of Sucumbios dated Feb. 14, 20 I J at 8:37 a.m., Maria Aguinda et al. v. Chevron Corp., No. 002-003 at 24, with Memorandum attached to the email from Juan Pablo Saenz to Pablo Fajardo and others, dated Nov. [5,2007 at II :24 a.m., attached as Annex 23 to the Appellate Alegato (DONZ-HDD-O 142503-25 at 3-4). JONES DAY Dr. Galo Alfredo Chiriboga Zambrano Dr. Over H. Jaramillo Jaramillo December 20,2011 Page 4 procesos de toma de decisiones que involucraban a Texaco Inc. y Texpet. En involucraban a Texaco Inc.