Month: October 2013

  • Lago Agrio: Day 2

    Readers, I trust you understand that my coverage of the trial is incomplete. Because I only have access to the witness statements (i.e., to what would be the testimony of Chevron’s witnesses on direct examination) and not to the cross-examination, I am only able to report on half of the goings-on. I’m looking into ways……

  • Case of the Day: Karpov v. Browder

    The case of the day is Karpov v. Browder, [2013] EWHC 3071 (QB). The case arose out of the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009. Magnitsky had been investigating a tax fraud committed in Russia. His death in custody was widely condemned, and in fact, the US enacted a new statute,……

  • Lago Agrio: Day 1

    The Lago Agrio RICO trial got under way today in New York. Reuters has a pretty good summary. To the defendants’ dismay, Judge Kaplan is using a procedure that is not uncommon these days in bench trials: parties offer the direct testimony of their witnesses in affidavits, and the witnesses are then subject to live……

  • Lago Agrio: The RICO Trial Starts Today

    The trial of Chevron’s claims against the Lago Agrio plaintiffs and Steven Donziger starts today in New York. Unfortunately, all of Letters Blogatory’s staff reporters are busy on other assignments, so I will not have live coverage. Here are a few updates from the docket in the final lead-up to the trial: The Surprise Documents.……

  • Case of the Day: In re Application of Pinchuk

    The case of the day is In re Application of Pinchuk (S.D. Fla. 2013). Victor Mikhaylovich Pinchuk was the claimant in an LCIA arbitration against Igor Valeryevich Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Borisovich Bogolyubov. The three had been joint venturers in the ferroalloy business. Pinchuk sought to take discovery under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 from several third……