QUITO, Ecuador--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Trying to make good on its promise of a “lifetime of litigation” for indigenous groups in the Amazon, Chevron is using fraudulent tactics to delay an Ecuadorian trial court from reaching a decision on a record $27 billion in environmental damages, lawyers for local residents say.

“Facing overwhelming evidence of that they caused a massive human rights violation, Chevron is engaged in an absolute judicial fraud in Ecuador to keep the trial going to avoid paying a judgment,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lawyer for 30,000 Amazonian residents filed the case in 1993. “The company has gone rogue and thousands of innocent people are the victims.”

Some of Chevron’s other abuses of the judicial process include:

    * Trying to drown the court with more than 200,000 pages of documents, most of them repetitive. On several occasions, after losing a motion, the company has re-filed the exact same motion and insisted the judge rule in its favor.
    * Claiming more field inspections need to be performed, even though the court already has inspected 94 sites over a five-year period – with 100% of the sites found to be contaminated, according to Richard Cabrera, the court expert.
    * Chevron continues to buy large advertisements accusing the independent court expert, Professor Cabrera, of “fraud” without any supporting evidence – a smear campaign that is intended to destroy the reputation of a respected Ecuadorian scientist, said Fajardo.
    * Chevron also has refused to speak out against clear human rights abuses intended to intimidate lawyers for the plaintiffs and court personnel. Lawyers have received death threats, and the office of the court expert was mysteriously robbed of case-related materials.

Fajardo said Chevron’s tactics not only violate the due process rights of the plaintiffs, but they also violate international law principles that prohibit parties from abusing the judicial process. The government of Ecuador has made the same charge against Chevron in a related international arbitration.