Letters Blogatory

The Blog of International Judicial Assistance
By Ted Folkman

Liveblog: “Lessons of Chevron”

Welcome to the liveblog of today’s symposium, “Lessons from Chevron”! The symposium is sponsored by the Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation. The liveblog is jointly sponsored by the Journal and by Letters Blogatory. Thank you to editors-in-chief Nick Landsman-Roos and Matt Woleske for agreeing on such short notice to participate in the liveblog.

You’ll find the updated schedule here. As you can see, the morning will focus on one-on-one conversations with key participants in the case. Following a break at 11:30 (all times are UTC -8), there will be a panel discussion on third-party litigation funding, followed by lunch. The symposium will resume at 1:30 with discussions of legal ethics and forum non conveniens, and following another break at 4 pm, discovery practice.

The plan is for Nick and Matt to liveblog as they are able. Readers, if you have comments or questions, please submit a comment to this post. I may chime in from time to time via the liveblog as well, though I’m not attending the symposium and so will only be in a position to ask questions or to comment on the livebloggers’ comments, not to report on what’s being said.

Those of you who are following the case closely may be interested in a new interim award issued yesterday by the BIT tribunal hearing the dispute between Ecuador and Chevron. I’m not going to comment on it in this post, but I will have more coverage sometime next week.

Enjoy the liveblog!

Ted Folkman

3 responses to “Liveblog: “Lessons of Chevron””

  1. Antonin I. Pribetic

    Odd.

    Since when does a BIT/investor-state tribunal have jurisdiction to direct a State to impose a stay or suspension of execution of a judgment, rendered by the State’s court involving private parties?

    Certainly a creative tactic of employing public international law procedure to affect a private international law dispute. I remain dubious, however, that the Tribunal has jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the underlying Lago Agrio judgment.

    Reply
  2. Antonin I. Pribetic

    I remain troubled by the allegations of fraud that permeate these proceedings. A finding of fraud by a U.S. court, or perhaps the BIT Tribunal, will vitiate any enforcement prospects of the Lago Agrio judgment in Canada, and likely, elsewhere. However, until such factual finding is made, it is all speculative at this stage.

    That said, where Chevron deliberately moved on FNC grounds, it is difficult to reconcile that Chevron can now resile from this decision by attempting to impeach the Ecuador judgment on grounds of jurisdictional fraud. While it may appear unfair, res judicata and cause of action estoppel sometimes operate unfairly, but finality is a cornerstone of the foreign judgment enforcement regime. Had Chevron not sought out Ecuador as a convenient forum, then it would have left open the arguments for intrinsic fraud.

    Trying to attack the merits circuitously is antithetical to the underlying conflict of laws principles at play here. If there are other grounds to impeach the judgments, such as lack of due process, and public policy grounds, then it will necessarily be an indictment on the entire Ecuadorean political and judicial system; such an indictment most judges and courts are loath to declare.

    Reply
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