In March 2014, Judge Louis A. Kaplan issued a nearly 500-page ruling against Donziger

and the Lago Agreo plaintiffs, blocking the collection of the $9 billion Ecuadorian

judgment in the U.S. Judge Kaplan cites in the summary of his ruling the Cabrera report

crude outtakes and Gera's testimony. He writes that among the various objectives of Donziger's

PR campaign has been an effort to quote, shift the focus from the fraud on Chevron and the

Lago Agreo court to the environmental harm that Donziger and the Lago Agreo plaintiffs

claim was done in the Oriente. There's an accent on that last E in Oriente in Judge Kaplan's

summary. It's a mistake, which is unfortunate given how many of the Ecuadorians we spoke with

accused Kaplan of being racist and or too ignorant about their country, its laws and its

language to oversee this case. But the sentiment that Kaplan expresses here is also really interesting.

How dare you shift the focus from the fraud committed against a company to the damage inflicted

on a community? Kaplan says we shouldn't be quote-unquote distracted by the pollution.

Then he writes quote, the court assumes that there is pollution in the Oriente. On that assumption,

Texaco and perhaps even Chevron, though it never drilled for oil in Ecuador, might bear some

responsibility. And yeah, the accent mistake is there on Oriente throughout this ruling.

Kaplan continues quote, in any case, improvement of conditions for the residents of the Oriente

appears to be both desirable and overdue. But the defendant's effort to change the subject to

the Oriente, understandable as it is as a tactic, misses the point of this case.

The issue here is not what happened in the Oriente more than 20 years ago and who, if anyone,

now is responsible for the wrongs then done. It instead is whether a court decision was procured

by corrupt means, regardless of whether the cause was just. An innocent defendant is no more

entitled to submit false evidence to co-opt and pay off a court appointed expert or to coerce or

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