Chevron Wins Latest In Long-Running Civil Case

Gasoline pumps situated at a Chevron station in Milpitas, Calif., in February. A federal judge ruled that a record $9.5 billion environmental-damage award against Chevron was tainted. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gasoline pumps situated at a Chevron station in Milpitas, Calif., in February. A federal judge ruled that a record $9.5 billion environmental-damage award against Chevron was tainted. ASSOCIATED PRESS

California-based Chevron has won the latest court decision in a case that the Wall Street Journal calls “… one the longest running in corporate history.” The WSJ backgrounds that “… Monday’s decision affirms a lower-court ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who found in 2014 that the $9.5 billion environmental-damage judgment won by New York lawyer Steven Donziger and his Ecuadorean plaintiffs against Chevron was obtained through fraud and corruption. Judge Kaplan ruled Mr. Donziger couldn’t enforce the judgment in the U.S. or profit from the award anywhere in the world.

One reason the case will continue: “The appeals judges wrote that although the $9.5 billion judgment can’t be enforced in the U.S., their ruling does not stop the plaintiffs from taking action to enforce the judgment elsewhere.”

Read about the latest chapter of the saga here:http://www.wsj.com/articles/chevron-wins-ruling-blocking-enforcement-of-9-5-billion-ecuador-judgment-1470686218

In-depth Analysis of Silver Conviction Implications

CCM publisher, Sara Warner, writes an in-depth analysis of the Sheldon Silver conviction implications in her latest Huffington Post blog. Take a look!

By the Playbook: Power, Greed & Corruption.

As reported in the NYT 4/4/15, "Sheldon Silver, the former New York State Assembly speaker, arrived at federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press."

As reported in the NYT 4/4/15, “Sheldon Silver, the former New York State Assembly speaker, arrived at federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press.”

When it comes to the Sheldon Silver corruption trial this week, you certainly can follow Politico’s “Playbook” advice and “pick your news.” The NY Post and Times are illustrating that the GOP/Dem. divide certainly makes for contrasting coverage. But Politico’s NY Playbook is doing a solid job linking to various sources, reporting this week in a curtain-raiser story that Silver “… has maintained his innocence and said he was looking forward to this day. On this mild autumn Tuesday, the man who led the State Assembly for over two decades wrapped himself in the system of Albany. What prosecutors cast as misdeeds — collecting referral fees from a real estate law firm employed by major developers and a firm that represented asbestos patients treated by a medical researcher that Silver gave state funding — were presented as the inevitable conflicts of a part-time Legislature where lawmakers have side jobs.”
 
(This is, of course, a criminal trial. The civil court implications come from allegations that Speaker Silver is charged with a kickback scheme involving referrals for mesothelioma victims, gaining millions of dollars in referral fees while funneling state funding to the clinic making the referrals.)
 
And we’re off…