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Ecuador Succeeds in Obtaining a New Victory in a U.S. Court to Access Information From Another of Chevron's Environmental Experts

Despite the opposition of the oil company

Ecuador Succeeds in Obtaining a New Victory in a U.S. Court to Access Information From Another of Chevron's Environmental Experts

Despite the opposition of the oil company

Published 12-21-13

Submitted by MCSquared PR Inc.

Last Wednesday, December 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit of the Northern District of Florida (USA) affirmed that the Ecuadorian State could use –within the international arbitration known as Chevron III–, of documents held by doctor Robert E. Hinchee, who has acted as an environmental expert for the oil company within the litigation known as the “Lago Agrio case” and within the international arbitration filed by the transnational against Ecuador in 2009.

The Appellate Court affirmed the decision issued by the District Court, which ordered Dr. Hinchee to deliver approximately 1.200 documents to Ecuador’s defense team, containing notes produced by the expert and his correspondence with other experts who also acted in favor of Chevron and could demonstrate that the expert’s conclusions regarding the contamination caused by the company during its operations in Ecuador are debatable and inaccurate.

In the opinion of the transnational and Dr. Hinchee, these documents were protected by the Work-Product Doctrine and, therefore, could not be produced pursuant to Rule 26 (b) (3) and its 2010 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The Court considered, nonetheless, that the documents requested by Ecuador refer to the hypotheses and impressions of Hinchee and his expert colleagues, which are not protected by Rule 26, neither before nor after the 2010 amendments.

Fort the State Attorney General, Dr. Diego García Carrión, “this decision is, without a doubt, an important achievement within the dispute that the Ecuadorian State faces against the oil company, as all the information obtained from Chevron’s environmental expert, as well as the previous information obtained from expert Bjorn Bjorkman, shall be used as evidence within the arbitration that the transnational filed against Ecuador for denial of justice and breach of the BIT signed by Ecuador and the United States of America.

Source: 
Procuraduría General del Estado (Ecuador) 
COMUNICACIÓN SOCIAL 
Telephone: (02) 2 559 308 
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