International News

Attorney Steven Donziger’s long quest to wring a settlement from Chevron over oil pollution in the Ecuadorean jungle suffered a potentially fatal blow today after the environmental consultant he relied upon to obtain a $19 billion verdict there disavowed its work, saying the process was “fatally tainted.”

A South Australian businessman has accused the funder of Australia's largest class action against 12 banks of stealing the idea for the class action, a move that may derail the case, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Two months after Chevron Corporation filed an explosive declaration by a former Ecuadorian judge describing an alleged Amazonian shakedown, its adversaries have lined up their own judge to lob similar claims right back at Chevron. The twist? The latest declaration was filed by the very same judge accused by Chevron of taking bribes to issue a sham $19 billion environmental judgment against the company. 

As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, investors who purchased their shares in a company’s stock on a non-U.S. exchange are unable to pursue securities claims against the company or its management in U.S. courts. I have long thought these investors’ preclusion from U.S. courts would force them to try to develop remedies in their home jurisdictions – which is what it appears that RBS investors, whose U.S. securities claims were dismissed,  now appear to be doing.

A group of investors, including the pension funds for miners and electricity workers, are suing the Royal Bank of Scotland for millions of pounds of losses sustained in 2008.

Although most Supreme Court watchers are focused on the two gay marriage cases to be argued before the Court on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, for Lawfare readers this may be the week that the Supreme Court finally issues a decision in the landmark Alien Tort Statute case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum.