Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Today we talk
Speaker 1: oil and it's aftermath. In a two thousand and fourteen
Speaker 1: opinion issued in the Southern District of New York, Judge
Speaker 1: Lewis Kaplan wrote, quote, this case is extraordinary. The facts
Speaker 1: are many and sometimes complex. They include things that normally
Speaker 1: come only out of Hollywood. Unquote. Like most stories that
Speaker 1: end up in court, this is one with two very
Speaker 1: different points of view. My guest today, Stephen Donziger, represents
Speaker 1: one side of the case. According to him, when Texico,
Speaker 1: later acquired by Chevron, stopped drilling for oil and the
Speaker 1: m Zon Rainforest, millions of gallons of toxic waste remained
Speaker 1: in its wake. For over two decades, a group of
Speaker 1: Ecuadorians has waged a class action lawsuit over what environmentalists
Speaker 1: have dubbed the Amazon Chernobyl One Review of Crude, a
Speaker 1: two thousand nine documentary by Joe Burlinger about the case,
Speaker 1: reads quote, if you like stories with real life good
Speaker 1: guys and bad guys than crude is for you. Don Zigger,
Speaker 1: as lead attorney representing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, has been fighting
Speaker 1: this fight for over twenty years. Chevron claims that the
Speaker 1: required cleanup has already taken place and that the remaining
Speaker 1: pollution is the responsibility of Petro Ecuador, the state owned
Speaker 1: oil company. Stephen don Zigger says Chevron is waging a
Speaker 1: massive retaliation campaign against him. But this story starts with Texico.
Speaker 1: They created what is probably the world's worst oil contamination ever.
Speaker 1: Um They dumped billions of gowns of toxic waste, even
Speaker 1: by their own admission, into the streams and rivers and
Speaker 1: soils of the Amazon rainforest. There were several indigenous groups
Speaker 1: and farmer communities living in the area when this happened,
Speaker 1: and they essentially poisoned the ecosystem, the water supply that
Speaker 1: thousands of people relied on for their drinking water, for bathing,
Speaker 1: for fishing into, for their very survivals, which had been
Speaker 1: pristine rainforest down there before Texico went down and found oil. Correct,
Speaker 1: And that's exactly right. It had been pretty much pristine
Speaker 1: rainforest until the mid sixties when Texico showed up and
Speaker 1: found oil, and they had a huge concession from Ecuador's
Speaker 1: government fift hundred square miles. They built and developed ten
Speaker 1: different oil fields. There were hundreds of well sites, about
Speaker 1: a thousand of these open air toxic waste pits. They
Speaker 1: just dug the dirt out of the jungle floor and
Speaker 1: dumped all the drilling MUDs which contained carcinogens, benzine and
Speaker 1: the like um oil sludge right into the jungle. And
Speaker 1: they built these pits on hills and generally they would
Speaker 1: put pipes on the side and them and run off
Speaker 1: the surplusage through the pipe down into streams and rivers.
Speaker 1: So a big part of this is that the produced
Speaker 1: water that results from drilling, which in the u S
Speaker 1: I'm told their common practices to re injected back into
Speaker 1: the ground into some safety. They did not do that,
Speaker 1: and they did not do it. They really cut corners
Speaker 1: to the main lagoons of it everywhere, and and granted
Speaker 1: this was an isolated part of the forest at that time,
Speaker 1: but there were indigenous groups that have lived there for
Speaker 1: millennia that were living and prospering in this beautiful environment.
Speaker 1: And they just dump toxic oil and oil waste right
Speaker 1: into the streams and rivers that they relied on for
Speaker 1: their sustenance. People were treated with a complete lack of respect.
Speaker 1: And those people that were there, the indigenous people there
Speaker 1: in that part of Ecuador, none of them were included
Speaker 1: if I'm if I understand it correctly in the development
Speaker 1: of the area, meaning all outside labor was brought from Ecuador.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of high paying jobs or relatively
Speaker 1: speaking for Ecuador, and they brought them and those people
Speaker 1: who were the local people were just sidelined to like
Speaker 1: basket weaving or like some little drink. That's generally true,
Speaker 1: except for one one task, which was to clean up
Speaker 1: or purport to clean up the oil spills. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to so Texico has the
Speaker 1: find in the sixties and they developed the the oil
Speaker 1: fields there for like a twenty two year twenty plus
Speaker 1: year period, and then correct me if I'm wrong, or
Speaker 1: take me through what happens when when Chevron absorbs Texico. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, Chevron knew when it bought
Speaker 1: Texico and that it was not off the hook. What
Speaker 1: had happened is that after we initially filed our lawsuit
Speaker 1: back and way back. This is probably the world's longest lawsuit,
Speaker 1: I seem and uh. Instead of dealing with the problem
Speaker 1: and dealing directly with the communities, Texicos went directly to
Speaker 1: Ecuador's government and said, oh, we'll put a pittance of
Speaker 1: money forty million dollars and you give us a release.
Speaker 1: But very importantly, the release did not release the private
Speaker 1: claims of our clients. Our lawsuit is a private awsuit
Speaker 1: brought by private citizens against a private company. It's a
Speaker 1: civil lawsuit. This has already been resolved by multiple courts
Speaker 1: in our favor. But Chevron to this day, for public
Speaker 1: relations and other purposes, still tries to raise this issue like, oh,
Speaker 1: we cleaned up, we were released. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: the clean up didn't really happen, And second, the legal
Speaker 1: document itself does not release them from the private claims.
Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up? Jacksonville, Florida? In Jacksonville And what
Speaker 1: your dad do? He was a small businessman in the
Speaker 1: in the television picture to business. And what did your
Speaker 1: mom do? She was troublemaker? Yeah, my mom was was
Speaker 1: an editor of a local newspaper for the Jewish community
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, UM and she was a substitute school teacher
Speaker 1: and you know, spend a lot of time at home
Speaker 1: with my my sister and I. She was a great mom.
Speaker 1: And what was your childhood lack in terms of your
Speaker 1: own political advocacy? Well, I social consciousness. I I developed
Speaker 1: a social constient at a young age. At the world,
Speaker 1: at a very young age struck me as a very
Speaker 1: unfair place to a lot of people. When it bothered
Speaker 1: me greatly, um my mom helped cultivate that. We went
Speaker 1: to protests in front of local grocery stores, you know,
Speaker 1: and supported Caesar Chavez and the farm Workers Union. When
Speaker 1: I was you know, a young ten, eleven, twelve years old, UM,
Speaker 1: I met a a local elected official in my hometown,
Speaker 1: Steve Pagick, who was a huge inspiration for me. He
Speaker 1: was a really great politician who had a deep social conscience. UM.
Speaker 1: And as I became a teenager, UM, I took it
Speaker 1: upon myself to really try to learn the stuff that
Speaker 1: I wasn't being taught in school about, you know, how
Speaker 1: the world was really work. For example, Oh, just the
Speaker 1: the degree of of of you know, injustice, the you know,
Speaker 1: issues having to do with race, poverty, the stuff that
Speaker 1: um that that that schools weren't really putting it be
Speaker 1: four in terms of teaching kids. Um, your mother had
Speaker 1: to do something with Chavez. Yeah, and what did you do? Well,
Speaker 1: we went to a grocery store and you know, we were, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we basically organized a boycott of local chain
Speaker 1: of grocery stores when Dixie and Jacksonville because they were
Speaker 1: they were you know, you know, Caesar Chavas was trying
Speaker 1: to boycott the grocery store for various labor related issues
Speaker 1: in California, later to the farm workers units. Old were
Speaker 1: you then? I think it was about twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, in that area. But but you know, look,
Speaker 1: I had a fun child and I don't want to
Speaker 1: act like all I did was sitting around a protest,
Speaker 1: which it was one of the man posters including you know,
Speaker 1: swimming red lines. I mean we did a lot of surfing.
Speaker 1: I mean we grew up near that beach. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I had I had a really healthy, active childhood. But
Speaker 1: I always sort of felt like I wanted to utilize
Speaker 1: whatever professional talents I might one day develop on behalf
Speaker 1: of people who were getting screwed over. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: how people the people developed that sense of social injustice
Speaker 1: very young. And you look at the world as a
Speaker 1: place where there are powerful people that are abusing powerless
Speaker 1: people and you want to do something about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very true. And and look, I grew up in
Speaker 1: an upper middle class family. I mean I had a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunity. But I decided, you know, as I
Speaker 1: went through college and then law, going to graduate American University,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be like in d C, near
Speaker 1: the politics. And at that time I sort of was
Speaker 1: under what I think is now a mistaken notion that
Speaker 1: like it was all decided in Washington. When I realized
Speaker 1: actually decided other other places, Um, in courtrooms, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to be in d C. And then
Speaker 1: from there I went, I went, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to get into Harvard Law School. I mean
Speaker 1: I say fortunate enough because I met a incredibly fabulous
Speaker 1: people there. Who who who do really that the goal
Speaker 1: when you were a you know, I mean, it didn't
Speaker 1: even occur to me i'd be qualified, honestly to get
Speaker 1: into a place like Harvard. I ended up getting, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I did well academically, Um, I was very
Speaker 1: interested in the subject matter. Liked it there. How did
Speaker 1: you change at Harvard? You're in to you one of
Speaker 1: the top law schools in the world. What puts right
Speaker 1: in front of you? Like this choice, and it's a fundamental,
Speaker 1: profound choice about life. And because Harvard. You know, when
Speaker 1: you go to Harvard and come out with a Harvard degree,
Speaker 1: especially at Harvard Law School, you can do almost anything
Speaker 1: you want in the legal profession and in other professions.
Speaker 1: Or you can do almost anything you want, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting the power structure that keeps people down. So you know,
Speaker 1: when people get out of law school, many of them
Speaker 1: are you know, burdened with debt and and and their
Speaker 1: choices can become limited because of the financial thing. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of I think, you know, commitment to
Speaker 1: this kind of work to to choose a path that
Speaker 1: that most people would consider to be complicated and hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it never was. My first job
Speaker 1: out of law school was working for the Public Defender
Speaker 1: and Washington d c defending children accused of crimes in
Speaker 1: d c um out of Harvard, out of Harvard, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I made virtually no money, but I love
Speaker 1: the job. I was in court and it was so interesting,
Speaker 1: and I learned so much, I mean, skills that I
Speaker 1: carry forward with me to this day and the work
Speaker 1: I do now in Ecuador. So so right away when
Speaker 1: you get out and do good for others versus do
Speaker 1: well for yourself. Line, you've made a clear choice. You
Speaker 1: made a clear choice. But I also don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, overplay it in the sense that I enjoy
Speaker 1: the work. You know, it's not altruism. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel good about myself and and and it's challenging on
Speaker 1: so many levels. It's fascinating front about this one case
Speaker 1: where if you if you survive, you know, if you prevail,
Speaker 1: you could make a lot of money. Absolutely, so yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I want to make uh you know, Look,
Speaker 1: I will let me put it this way. The purpose
Speaker 1: of the case, the purpose of the case is not
Speaker 1: to make money for lawyers. The purpose of the case
Speaker 1: is to help people who are being grievously harm and
Speaker 1: even being killed by cancers and exposures to toxins. However,
Speaker 1: the model of the case that has allowed this case
Speaker 1: to be I think great new ground, and the unique
Speaker 1: aspect of this case to me is our ability to
Speaker 1: harness what I would call the capitalist model, the free
Speaker 1: market model in the law to bring in significant resources
Speaker 1: from investors and others so we can get in the
Speaker 1: same ballpark as a company like Chevron, which you have
Speaker 1: to remember, they're not only trying to win the case,
Speaker 1: they're trying to kill the idea of the case because
Speaker 1: they don't want lawyers like us doing this kind of
Speaker 1: work ever in the future. So it's important that the
Speaker 1: money aspect is important. And and look, if I end
Speaker 1: up collecting a fee, I don't know that I will.
Speaker 1: It's never what's motivated me. Um the plan my personal plan,
Speaker 1: and I think other lawyers on the case feel the
Speaker 1: same way as to use some of that money to
Speaker 1: leverage it back into the into the fight for social
Speaker 1: justice around the world. I love that in this New
Speaker 1: Yorker magazine article that I went back and read again.
Speaker 1: Uh they quote in two thousand eight, a Chevron lobbyist
Speaker 1: in Washington told Newsweek, we can't let little countries screw
Speaker 1: around with big companies like this, And then one Chevron
Speaker 1: spokesman said, we're going to fight this until hell Freeze
Speaker 1: is over, and then we'll fight it out of the ice. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that quote. You know, it's funny the the
Speaker 1: the psychology of a major company that Chevron that's almost
Speaker 1: always gets its way around the world, and what a
Speaker 1: company does in this case Chevron, when you actually harness
Speaker 1: the power of a community based movement. Remember there are
Speaker 1: communities on the ground in the Amazon, indigenous and farmer
Speaker 1: communities that are behind this case. They have a democratic
Speaker 1: organization down there that runs the case that hired me,
Speaker 1: that hires other lawyers. The power that you can create
Speaker 1: when you organize properly at the grassroots level and you're
Speaker 1: smart enough to connect that up with capital, that is,
Speaker 1: you know, people who have money to back it. Understanding
Speaker 1: that they can actually themselves make money off of the
Speaker 1: claim is what's absolutely paradigmatic shifting about this case. I mean,
Speaker 1: because they've never seen a situation where a a Harvard
Speaker 1: law grad and many other people. It would be a
Speaker 1: mistake to say that it's primarily me. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people working on the team. It's
Speaker 1: a team, but you know, I've been in the only
Speaker 1: lawyer still left who was in at But what they
Speaker 1: don't like is a guy like me and others who
Speaker 1: have access to the power structure, the elite hedge funds.
Speaker 1: You know, classmates of mine who are in very powerful positions,
Speaker 1: including the President United States, can connect up with you know,
Speaker 1: people in the jungle who don't have any money. I
Speaker 1: mean they their business model does not account for what
Speaker 1: has happened here, Okay, which is why they're fighting it
Speaker 1: so hard. Whether why they're spending so much money, why
Speaker 1: they refused to settle the case. How did the government
Speaker 1: of Equador evolve over the time that you've done the case,
Speaker 1: because if I read about different administrations that have come in,
Speaker 1: some have been more disposed towards helping it than others. Correct. Well,
Speaker 1: look um, you know what what Chermon and what Texico
Speaker 1: now Chermon has countered on Latin America, but really all
Speaker 1: over the world is that they can go into a
Speaker 1: place to a deal with the government, get access to oil,
Speaker 1: and just work the system in their favor. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there was there was significant economic advancement in
Speaker 1: Equador because oil. The still is to this day. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're a member of OPEC. You know, oil is
Speaker 1: a huge part of the national budget, even with prices down,
Speaker 1: It's a very important part of what's allowed the country
Speaker 1: to develop socially. Now what we experienced. Remember I started
Speaker 1: going down there. I've been down there about two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty times. I used to go to Ecuador like
Speaker 1: you would fly on the shuttle to d C from
Speaker 1: New York. I mean I would go for a day meeting,
Speaker 1: come right back. Okay. Luckily it's the same time zone
Speaker 1: as New York, so it wasn't that and you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't really shake me up too much. But I've
Speaker 1: been there many, many times. In two thousand seven, um
Speaker 1: man named Raphael Correa was elected president. He was a
Speaker 1: former professor, young guy um very nationalistic, has a PhD
Speaker 1: in economics from US University, very capable. And over the
Speaker 1: last ten years he's been president, and I think the
Speaker 1: country has changed. What's changed in terms of the Ecuador case,
Speaker 1: in terms of the Chevron case, is you finally had
Speaker 1: a president of Ecuador who cared about what was happening
Speaker 1: to his own citizens, these indigenous groups and farmer communities
Speaker 1: in the jungle, these impoverished groups. And in Berlin just
Speaker 1: film he shows up. Yeah, Berlin just's film, he shows up.
Speaker 1: You know, So the first time you have a president
Speaker 1: who goes down sees what really happened the oil is
Speaker 1: visible all over the place, talks to the people and says,
Speaker 1: this is one of the biggest outrages I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: They were very often that guys like that, they're sincere
Speaker 1: at the moment that they say that, yes, and then
Speaker 1: things evolved when the how is he held up as
Speaker 1: an ally? Look, this is the thing. Okay, he has
Speaker 1: his job, we have our job. We don't work together.
Speaker 1: We're not part of the same team. He's the government,
Speaker 1: we're a private lawsuit. However, I think it's important for
Speaker 1: the world to recognize that Raphael Correa, the president of Equator,
Speaker 1: the first person ever to go down there and see
Speaker 1: the damage and talk about it, has stood by the victims. Okay,
Speaker 1: he hasn't interfered with the lawsuit. And what I decided,
Speaker 1: along with my colleagues in Ecuador, was that until we
Speaker 1: convinced the country public opinion that this was a battle
Speaker 1: between a country that had been completely screwed over by
Speaker 1: an American company, in that company as opposed to the
Speaker 1: indigenous people only in Texico, we would never win the case.
Speaker 1: So we spent a hell of a lot of time
Speaker 1: doing media work and and speaking at schools and university
Speaker 1: You had been a journalist. Temporarily, I wasn't. I was
Speaker 1: a journalist became. I worked in Nicaragua during the height
Speaker 1: of the Concert War. I worked there from nineteen four
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty seven, saw young people covered the war.
Speaker 1: Lived in Monaugua. I worked initially for United Press International,
Speaker 1: and then I freelanced for a bunch of papers. The
Speaker 1: Christian Science Monitor of Philadelphi inquired. I mean that was
Speaker 1: back when people read newspapers, you know, And I made
Speaker 1: a living writing freelance stories out of graduated from Harvard
Speaker 1: Law School. No, I had graduated. That was between time
Speaker 1: in law school. I did that for four years and
Speaker 1: then I went to law school. I mean that's where
Speaker 1: I really learned about the culture of the Spanish. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I went to law school and got
Speaker 1: out of law school, because of that previous experience in
Speaker 1: Latin America, I was able to sort of build on
Speaker 1: that because I got to do legal work in Latin America.
Speaker 1: I loved the region too much, and there's I want
Speaker 1: to sort of somehow figure out a role for myself
Speaker 1: down there and ended up in this case. But did
Speaker 1: you learn during that period that helped you later on? Well, look,
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't it all part of the same power structure?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean what I learned. I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, in Nicaragua, I saw, you know, a battle
Speaker 1: for for social justice against a US back dictator. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw you know, the sacrifices people willing to make
Speaker 1: to get the most basic things in life that many
Speaker 1: people in the US take for granted. And I understood
Speaker 1: what it meant, you know, in a way that I
Speaker 1: could never probably get from living in the United States.
Speaker 1: And it gave me perspective. Okay, I mean from that
Speaker 1: point forward, nothing ever seemed too big for me. You know,
Speaker 1: nothing ever seemed too complicated or toobelievable, unbelievable like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I felt terribly lucky, uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: to have grown up in a place where I had
Speaker 1: the space, you know, to develop the way I've developed.
Speaker 1: Because there's many countries in the world, as you know,
Speaker 1: when people speak out, they get killed or they get
Speaker 1: put in jail off. Yeah, and they get put off.
Speaker 1: That just sort of that just sort of made me
Speaker 1: redouble my commitment to wanting to do what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do with my life. You know, It's like I've
Speaker 1: got to do something. Why why? Well, look, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know you could have done a little of that.
Speaker 1: You could have been people in New York, I know
Speaker 1: where you made a lot of money and then you
Speaker 1: had a dinner and you gave money to help. Why
Speaker 1: don't you do it that? Our lies would have been
Speaker 1: so much better with her? She loves you. You could
Speaker 1: have done this, like you know, thousand the table, but
Speaker 1: you didn't do that. Um, why you know, Look, I
Speaker 1: never wanted not to make money. I mean I like money,
Speaker 1: or at least enough to be financially secure and to
Speaker 1: enjoy my life. And and look, my wife and I
Speaker 1: both work and we make enough money to live relatively comfortable.
Speaker 1: There's no complaints. We have one kid. We live in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not wealthy by any means, but we
Speaker 1: live fine. We take a vacation a couple to three years.
Speaker 1: We're okay. Man, it's all good. If we win the case, obviously,
Speaker 1: I will hopefully recover a percentage of the thing, which
Speaker 1: is two years if your life you've spent. And if
Speaker 1: I'm able to get that, I'll be in a different position.
Speaker 1: I mean, our goal, my wife and I have discussed
Speaker 1: this extensively along with the clients, and we want to
Speaker 1: create an entity uh to to continue to do the
Speaker 1: work in other places explore the Here's the Thing Archives
Speaker 1: where I talked with Joe Burlinger, the director of Crude,
Speaker 1: on why he makes films about real events. I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea of capturing human drama in all its ambiguous
Speaker 1: glory as it unfolds before the camera is first of all,
Speaker 1: an incredible way to make a film, and secondly to
Speaker 1: have faith. Take a listen that Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Stephen Donzigger, the lawyer who represents
Speaker 1: a group of Ecuadorian people in a landmark, decades long
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit against Chevron. The case has been fought
Speaker 1: both in Ecuador and the United States. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven, Donzigger one in Ecuador, and it was a
Speaker 1: big win, resulting in a nine point five billion dollar
Speaker 1: judgment against Chevron. However, three years later in New York,
Speaker 1: federal Judge Lewis Kaplan declared that this judgment could not
Speaker 1: be enforced in the United States due to what Kaplan
Speaker 1: described as quote dishonest and corrupt measures of Donziger's team
Speaker 1: that led to the verdict in Ecuador. Don Zigger is
Speaker 1: currently appealing the Caplan decision. If don Zigger prevails and
Speaker 1: Chevron pays, he could see a large amount of cash,
Speaker 1: although that wasn't the goal. Look, I never did this
Speaker 1: for the money. I'm thrilled to be able to do
Speaker 1: it and make enough money to live, you know, relatively comfortably. Um.
Speaker 1: I do want the money though, if I can get it,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to continue to do this work and
Speaker 1: train in fund of the lawyers to do this work
Speaker 1: around the world. I mean, I want to help create
Speaker 1: new capacity on the progressive side of the law to
Speaker 1: fight these powerful corporations that to me, are abusing the law.
Speaker 1: You know, I can tell you I personally have been
Speaker 1: targeted with what is probably the most well funded corporate
Speaker 1: retaliation came in ever. If you google me, you'll get
Speaker 1: all this negative stuff. But I want to get to
Speaker 1: what did you do about the litigation finance thing? Who? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you created that if someone came to you with
Speaker 1: the idea, so you know, look, you know you needed money.
Speaker 1: I needed to be creative about getting money because you know,
Speaker 1: look for several years, the case sort of went along
Speaker 1: at a certain level, and we were fine. When it
Speaker 1: was clear we were going to win the case in Ecuador,
Speaker 1: where cheveryone wanted it, they decided to try to destroy
Speaker 1: the case. And the turning point was in May two
Speaker 1: thousand nine when sixty Minutes ran a segment on the
Speaker 1: case and it made them look terrible. They interviewed me,
Speaker 1: and a couple of days later, I got an internal
Speaker 1: email from Chevron because I've litigated against him and gotten
Speaker 1: some of their documents, and they said, let's go after
Speaker 1: this lawyer. Because they calculated that I was like at
Speaker 1: the center of it all. They could cut off the
Speaker 1: head the whole thing Nicksonian strategy, and they hit me
Speaker 1: with everything they have. I mean, they sued me under
Speaker 1: the civil racketeering UH statute. They sued me for sixty
Speaker 1: billion dollars. I live in a two bedroom apartment. Okay,
Speaker 1: imagine coming home, you know, to your wife and say, hey, honey, um,
Speaker 1: you know, she says, how'd you had your day go?
Speaker 1: And you say, oh, well it was okay. So I
Speaker 1: got super sixty billion dollars today, you know, I put
Speaker 1: it at the end of the left. I had a
Speaker 1: nice lunch with my mom and then I went and
Speaker 1: brought you some flowers when I got exactly but no one,
Speaker 1: as far as my research tells me, in a individual
Speaker 1: in our country's history, it ever been sued for so
Speaker 1: much money. Okay. And I was being sued as I
Speaker 1: litigated this is two This was in after the sixty
Speaker 1: minutes pace. Yeah, this was in Okay, So the sixty
Speaker 1: minutes was in two thousand nine. They actually hit hit
Speaker 1: me with the lawsuit on February first, two thousand eleven. Okay,
Speaker 1: And that day I was lying down to Ecuador. I
Speaker 1: got off the plane in Miami to change planes. My
Speaker 1: BlackBerry was blowing up, and I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: they really did it. Like I couldn't believe they actually
Speaker 1: we're going to do that. There is that case. Now, well,
Speaker 1: we ended up litigating it and they won. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do I explain this? Um? They dropped all the
Speaker 1: sixty billion on the EVA trial. They dropped all the
Speaker 1: damages claims because under our system or legal system, if
Speaker 1: you're suited for money, you get a jury. If you're
Speaker 1: not sued for money, you don't get a jury. So
Speaker 1: in order to do that, they dropped any money damages,
Speaker 1: and they would not be attacking us to this degree
Speaker 1: had we not effectively called them out for what we
Speaker 1: believe their environmental crimes and from so just to finish this,
Speaker 1: so when you come up with the idea that you
Speaker 1: need the money and you're gonna monetize this with the
Speaker 1: litigation finance, you came up with the site where someone
Speaker 1: came to you and suggested try this, And how did
Speaker 1: you do it? Where does the money come from? So
Speaker 1: it comes from different sources. It comes from a combination
Speaker 1: of wealthy individuals and organized hedge funds that invest in
Speaker 1: Patent Bogs is a law firm that helped us raise money.
Speaker 1: They're they're a major capital. Burford was a fund um
Speaker 1: Woodsford was a fun Mr de Leone was an individual.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a fund, but he would invest personally.
Speaker 1: And this is a guy I went to law school with,
Speaker 1: by the way, who ended up making a lot of
Speaker 1: money in the internet poker space and he became very wealthy,
Speaker 1: and we he was in the Latino Law Students Association
Speaker 1: with me at Harvard, and we stayed in touch and
Speaker 1: he ended up funding a lot of the case. UM.
Speaker 1: But we have had a diverse, diverse sources of money
Speaker 1: that have backed this case through the years, and it's
Speaker 1: it's really the key to our success. It's pretty clear
Speaker 1: to them now that we're not going away. So take
Speaker 1: me like a baseball box score, just through the beats
Speaker 1: of the highlights. So these are the highlights. Ninety three.
Speaker 1: We start the case in the US. They wanted it
Speaker 1: in Ecuador. We fought to keep it in the US.
Speaker 1: They won that battle. So in two thousand one we
Speaker 1: go back to Ecuador. A lot of people said, don't go.
Speaker 1: You're waste your time. It's like this union leader told
Speaker 1: me it will never happen. Um, you're wasting your time.
Speaker 1: But we did it anyway. UM. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the case started to go real slow. They were trying
Speaker 1: to sabotage the process. The new guy gets elected. You
Speaker 1: know what was the name of Raphael Correa Corea. Um.
Speaker 1: Then we win the case in two thousand eleven eighteen billion.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and thirteen it got affirmed by the
Speaker 1: Supreme Corpate. The money got have because they took out
Speaker 1: a punitive damages component, which is unfortunate. So the judgment
Speaker 1: ended up being nine point five billion, But interest runs
Speaker 1: the more they delay. Now yeah, um, and and right now,
Speaker 1: the judge it's worth about ten billion dollars, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, it might seem like a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it really isn't. But there were also movements. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, because I'm not just only relying on
Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine because I read a bunch of
Speaker 1: different articles online about you and about the case. Is
Speaker 1: that also Chevron in the way that they tried to
Speaker 1: move the case out of the US into Equador. They
Speaker 1: tried to move it back to the U S. And
Speaker 1: you you got jurisdiction, You've got a ruling in Canada.
Speaker 1: Yeah so so yeah, okay, so again the highlights, we
Speaker 1: file in the US, it goes to Ecuador at their request,
Speaker 1: we win in Ecuador. They then to retaliate, come act
Speaker 1: to the U S where we originally wanted the case
Speaker 1: to happen, and sue me personally, sue my colleague Pablo
Speaker 1: Fajardo personally, he's a lawyer and equator Caplin's the judge
Speaker 1: hated my guts. I mean, part of my problem with
Speaker 1: Kaplan is that Joe Burlinger, the claim. Documentary filmmaker had
Speaker 1: made a movie about the case, and which came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, premiered at Sundance, and I was
Speaker 1: one of the protagonists in the film, along with Pablo
Speaker 1: and some others. Chevron was able to subpoena from Burlinger
Speaker 1: hundreds of hours of his out tail. Let's let's let's
Speaker 1: go through that from minute, because to get to the
Speaker 1: film and to some of the white water that you
Speaker 1: hit later in the case, I think, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: Chevron saw a cut of the film and there was
Speaker 1: something in there that was later omitted from a cut
Speaker 1: of the film, which is what prompted him to say,
Speaker 1: give us the six hundred hours and we want to
Speaker 1: see what else, She admitted. I mean, look, Joe Burrowinger
Speaker 1: followed us around for three years. Um, Joe and I
Speaker 1: became very comfortable. Joe has me talking very frankly about
Speaker 1: my frustrations, my fears, strategy, strategy, my joy ay, um,
Speaker 1: lots of very personal things, and I personally, as well
Speaker 1: as my clients, made a conscious decision to cooperate with
Speaker 1: Joe because we felt like it was far more important
Speaker 1: to get this story told than to somehow adhere to
Speaker 1: some sort of notion of the law that you should
Speaker 1: never work with a filmmaker during a case, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, many lawyers work with filmmakers. So I think
Speaker 1: it was a wise choice to work with Joe. What
Speaker 1: Chevron did is they got all his outtakes. Well, I
Speaker 1: didn't remember half the stuff I had said over three years,
Speaker 1: and and they found snippets of me saying some admittedly
Speaker 1: stuff that I probably should not have said, stuff like, um,
Speaker 1: you know all the all the judges here are corrupt
Speaker 1: and so, and then I'd say, um, I talked about
Speaker 1: Chevron at a frustration. I said, you know, if you
Speaker 1: tell a lie thousand times, it becomes the truth. I
Speaker 1: said that in reference to Chevron. The way Chevron edited
Speaker 1: the outtakes they cut out there and this is his philosophy,
Speaker 1: you know. So and there was a big legal battle
Speaker 1: with Joe, and he he invoked some freedom of the
Speaker 1: press that would have you had the journalist privilege, which
Speaker 1: was I mean, Joe just got and they punctured that
Speaker 1: and they got the six hours and they got result
Speaker 1: of that for your world, the journalist world. I think
Speaker 1: it was terrible. I mean, I mean basically, Joe Burrowingrew's
Speaker 1: an artist and he had to turn over his art.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just a super bad result for us. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it created a certain sensation that something might
Speaker 1: have been wrong with the way we litigated the case,
Speaker 1: which has taken us a really long time to combat
Speaker 1: because Chevron, you know, has so many resources and they
Speaker 1: have websites up about this kind of stuff. But in
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it was never evidence in
Speaker 1: the Ecuador case, it was never relied on by the court,
Speaker 1: and most of the outtakes show us doing what we
Speaker 1: should do. Where is the case at now? Well, in Ecuador,
Speaker 1: it's over. I mean we we We've gotten the decision
Speaker 1: affirmed by the Supreme Court. We have a case with
Speaker 1: Kaplan now or the case with Kaplan. It's on appeal.
Speaker 1: It's on appeal. But ultimately, look, there's nothing cap one
Speaker 1: can do to block the villagers from forcing their judgment.
Speaker 1: Outside the United States, where do you think that will happen?
Speaker 1: I think it's most likely to happen in Canada. You
Speaker 1: do now, um, So it's safe to assume that right
Speaker 1: now you're waiting for this somewhat reduced verdict like nine
Speaker 1: point five billion or whatever it is. What's what's the
Speaker 1: amount now, it's about ten billions, so ten billion. You're
Speaker 1: waiting for a ruling potentially from the Canadian court that
Speaker 1: you can access Chevron's assets there. That's exactly right. Look,
Speaker 1: the key any idea, what the timeline is for that,
Speaker 1: The key point of action, the center of the action
Speaker 1: now is in Canada. It's in Toronto. How do you
Speaker 1: think that will take? Well, it depends. Chevron's strategy is
Speaker 1: grinded down, grinded down, grinding down. Right now, they're trying
Speaker 1: to basically relitigate everything. That have one child. I have
Speaker 1: one child. He's no girl, he's a boy. That's his name, Matthew.
Speaker 1: So Matthew Donziger might be the attorney sitting in the
Speaker 1: courtroom in Canada collects the check for you know you
Speaker 1: and I'll be gone, will be dead, and Matthew Donziger
Speaker 1: and would be like, look to the order of Matthew Donziger.
Speaker 1: I hope not I hope, but you know it's possible. Look,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to me at this point. Okay, we
Speaker 1: we we are going to stay in this as long
Speaker 1: as it takes. A message needs to be sent a
Speaker 1: message needs to have you done this if this is
Speaker 1: you haven't taken any other cases. No, No, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of other case. You've done a lot of
Speaker 1: the case in a lot of other cases right now,
Speaker 1: right now, over the last years, I've mostly worked on this,
Speaker 1: but I've done you know, I've worked on different law firms.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of different cases. And look, there's
Speaker 1: other stuff and you know I want to do too,
Speaker 1: and planned to do. I mean, right now, it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of time because we need to sort of
Speaker 1: get some things organized in Canada in terms of the
Speaker 1: financing for the next few years and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, I I see a day in the
Speaker 1: not too distant future where I think this whole thing
Speaker 1: can resolve in the favor of the Ecuadorians. And this
Speaker 1: is the thing I settle. Well, I think I think
Speaker 1: ultimately we get near their assets in Canada, they're going
Speaker 1: to be forced to settle. I mean, they're not going
Speaker 1: to let their assets. B cs always good if they settle.
Speaker 1: I want to read you one thing. Not everyone embraced
Speaker 1: don Zigger's leadership. Esperanza Martinez, who runs Oil watch Suit America,
Speaker 1: an environmental group, and Quito told me, I confess the
Speaker 1: intense personality that Steve has, it's a struggle for me.
Speaker 1: Sarah Lee Whitson, a longtime friend of his who is
Speaker 1: now at Human Rights Watch, acknowledge that some people are
Speaker 1: put off by don Zinger's stubbornness in this theatricality. But
Speaker 1: it was precisely these qualities, she said, that enabled him
Speaker 1: to take on an oil giant. Quote. He's a leader
Speaker 1: and the fact that he's the one who has been
Speaker 1: with the case for over a decade has kept it going.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you in uh Berlinger's film
Speaker 1: to see yourself? What did you say? What did you
Speaker 1: think when you saw yourself? Because because you do come
Speaker 1: across and I don't begrudge this, I mean, we all
Speaker 1: have to have confidence in what we do. You have
Speaker 1: to you have to convey confidence for leadership, to convince
Speaker 1: people of the rightness of what you do. We have
Speaker 1: to strike a certain post. And you do come across
Speaker 1: from time to time as a big fan of yourself
Speaker 1: in the film and you're thinking, you're very confident. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of myself. I mean I think, look,
Speaker 1: I think what we as a team have put together
Speaker 1: and accomplished as extraordinary. I'm thrilled with what we've accomplished.
Speaker 1: I mean people looking like, oh, you've been a talk,
Speaker 1: you've been suited. No no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1: But you know, look, you asked me how I how
Speaker 1: I in the film. I have to say it was mixed.
Speaker 1: I mean I was I didn't come across uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was complicated. I there are aspects of my personality
Speaker 1: that I would see on the screen. It just it
Speaker 1: didn't really make me feel very good about myself. But
Speaker 1: you know, look, I've been in this over twenty years.
Speaker 1: I've evolved as a person. I mean there were times
Speaker 1: I couldn't have to. I couldn't go a day down
Speaker 1: there without yelling at people because I was so frustrated
Speaker 1: by the complacency of this Ecuadorians who were being victimized
Speaker 1: the same people are. They like, You've got to fight.
Speaker 1: This isn't an American battle, It's an Ecuadorian battle. Do
Speaker 1: this fight. Fight And ultimately, as we you know, built
Speaker 1: up our team and learned how to deal with these
Speaker 1: people and eventually won the case. It's very much now
Speaker 1: in the hands of the Ecuadorians. I mean it's This
Speaker 1: case is not about Steven Donziger. This case is about
Speaker 1: people in Equator who are now fighting back with the
Speaker 1: help of international allies like myself. But it is not
Speaker 1: my case. I do not own the case. It is
Speaker 1: owned by them, and ultimately they can They can fire
Speaker 1: me any day they want if they don't want me
Speaker 1: to work for them anymore. Two last things, would you
Speaker 1: like to see a movie made of this case? And
Speaker 1: who would play you in the movie? Look, there's been
Speaker 1: talk of a movie. I and the people I work
Speaker 1: with wanna have a movie. Any movie people. I have
Speaker 1: talked to some movie people. Um, but you know, the
Speaker 1: person who would play me would have to have tremendous
Speaker 1: fire in the belly. To be angry. I have to
Speaker 1: be angry for the I mean. I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: I have a very wide range of emotions. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's come across in this interview, but I
Speaker 1: mean I I laugh a lot, I cry a lot,
Speaker 1: I yell, I scream. I live the full game, and
Speaker 1: I care and I'm intense. Look, I try to be
Speaker 1: self aware and I try to people with respect, but
Speaker 1: I also try to accomplish the goals that I have
Speaker 1: for people who are being completely screwed and to have
Speaker 1: no voice. And if it means that you sort of
Speaker 1: some people are not going to like you for that,
Speaker 1: so be it. It's inevitable if you're going to actually
Speaker 1: create the kind of meaningful change that I think we're creating.
Speaker 1: I mean, Chevron hates my guts and you want to
Speaker 1: see their emails about me. But you know there's also allies,
Speaker 1: natural allies and in the progressive part of the legal
Speaker 1: community who don't like sort of the way we're going
Speaker 1: about our business. But you know, when you break I
Speaker 1: believe we're breaking the mold. The amount of resources we
Speaker 1: brought in the fact we've been able to actually win
Speaker 1: a judgment in Ecuador after all these years is a
Speaker 1: precedent setting its historic. We still have a lot of challenges.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of work to do to actually
Speaker 1: recover the money and do the clean up, which is
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal here. But you know, when you do
Speaker 1: those types of things, you're going to break furniture and
Speaker 1: you're gonna piss people off. And if you sort of
Speaker 1: want to live a life where you want everyone to
Speaker 1: like you, you're not going to be able to do
Speaker 1: this kind of work. Effectively so by the way, I
Speaker 1: used to want people to always like me, and I
Speaker 1: had to learn that it was okay to have people
Speaker 1: dislike you as long as it's for the right reason. Look,
Speaker 1: the key to this whole thing is is to just
Speaker 1: understand what's really happening and understand that you've been successful.
Speaker 1: They want you to believe you failed. They want you
Speaker 1: to get demoralized, they want you to believe you have
Speaker 1: mountains to climb, And I see it very clearly. I
Speaker 1: think this has been a fabulous experience. We've accomplished so much,
Speaker 1: We've come so far. We have a little bit more
Speaker 1: distance to go, and I believe we will get there.
Speaker 1: And they can't stand the fact that we still feel
Speaker 1: the way we feel about art, publishment. It's anyone's guess
Speaker 1: how Stephen Donziger's fight will end. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to here's the thing would make the
Speaker 1: past time