Quito, Ecuador — Representatives from institutions holding more than $360 million of ChevronTexaco stock will travel to Ecuador tomorrow for a weeklong fact-finding mission about the corporation’s former oil operations in the Amazon rainforest. ChevronTexaco has come under increased public scrutiny since last October following the first phase of multi-billion dollar trial that the company is facing in Ecuadorian courts around the oil operations.
The fact-finding mission is organized by the non-profit environmental and human rights organization Amazon Watch (www.future.amazonwatch.org). The delegates will visit areas impacted by oil operations as well as meet with affected residents and their legal counsel, representatives of the Ecuadorian and U.S. governments, and ChevronTexaco.
Delegation members include representatives from Trillium Asset Management, New York State Common Retirement Fund, Dominican Sisters, and Sisters of Mercy.
Trillium Asset Management is the sponsor of a shareholder proposal at ChevronTexaco addressing the pollution left behind by the company in the Amazon region of Ecuador after two decades of drilling. The shareholder proposal will be voted upon in late April.
ChevronTexaco is being sued in an Ecuadorian court for failing to properly clean up land and groundwater contaminated by its systematic dumping of 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste waters. At the time, it was standard practice in the U.S. to re-inject these waters into the ground in the oil production process. In 2002, after ten years of legal wrangling over venue, a U.S. District judge ordered ChevronTexaco to submit to the jurisdiction of the Ecuadorian legal system and declared that the U.S. courts would uphold the resulting judgment. The courtroom portion of the trial took was held in October 2003. The judge will begin visits to the affected areas for inspections this week. A verdict is expected later this year.
For more information:
On the lawsuit: www.texacorainforest.org
On the shareholder resolution: Trillium Asset Management – www.trilliuminvest.com
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