As if Chevron didn’t have its hands tied in Ecuador; we now read that they face an $11 billion lawsuit for an oil spill in Brazil.

In environmental news, the oil giant Chevron is facing a possible $11 billion lawsuit in Brazil following an offshore oil spill in November. A Brazilian prosecutor has announced plans to file criminal charges against Chevron and some of its local managers within weeks. Transocean, whose rig was used in the operation, is also expected to be charged.

This is what you get when you get when you allow a corporation to run wild with little regulation. And guess what? Transocean is involved in this disaster as well!

A class action lawsuit of 30,000 Ecuadorians living in the Amazon rainforest has reached a major milestone in its litigation. An appeals court has upheld a 2011 ruling that the oil company Chevron pay 9.5 billion dollars for damage caused to the environment. The President of Ecuador, Raphael Correa is said to be pleased with the ruling.

The latest verdict is the culmination of a process that began as far back as 1993. Throughout the years the legal proceedings have gained a global following and has even been featured in a documentary directed and produced by Joe Berlinger. In 2008, two Ecuadorian attorneys Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza won the prestigious Goldman Prize for their work on the Chevron case. In addition Pablo Fajardo was also named a CNN Hero.

As the Miami Herald now reports:

In its ruling late Tuesday, the court found the company liable for the shoddy environmental practices of its predecessor, Texaco, that included pumping millions of gallons of oil-tainted water in to creeks and streams. Texaco operated in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1960 to 1992 and the two companies merged in 2001.

As it stands now Chevron has no property in Ecuador so it will be difficult to seek compensation from the company.

I’m not surprised that they would attempt to do this.

Chevron is renewing its strategy to deplete the modest financial resources of the Ecuadorian indigenous plaintiffs who won an $18 billion judgment against the company by issuing discovery requests in six federal courts seeking thousands of documents, including those in possession of interns who have worked on the lawsuit, according to a new court filing that seeks a stay of the discovery process.

They can’t win based on the facts of the matter so they’ll aim to win any way possible. What if someone were to play the same game and file hunderds of discovery requests against Chevron shareholders?

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced today the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has levied the largest fine in its history—$87.4 million—against BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Texas, refinery.

via AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | BP Hit with Largest-Ever OSHA Fine of $87 Million.

For all the evil you do to workers, to people and to the environment there will be a reckoning. We will come and take your power from you sooner or later. Now that BP was swatted like a fly on a wall (for once), Chevron must also answer for its reign of terror.

CRUDE: A Joe Berlinger Film.

Today I saw CRUDE and it is everything I thought it would be and everything it needs to be as a film. At the end of the film I was troubled by the fact these people have still not received justice from the legal system in Ecuador as the case against Chevron is dragged on even further.