Word: correa
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...present at another meeting in the videos in which men claiming to be influential members of Correa's ruling Alianza País Party lay out a brazen bribery conspiracy. They tell Hansen and Borja that $3 million in payoffs will be required to land a cleanup contract, divided evenly among Nuñez, Correa's office (including, said one of the men, the President's sister) and the plaintiffs. The Chevron complaint also fingered Correa's chief legal adviser, Alexis Mera, in the scheme. At a press conference on Sept. 1, Mera denied being involved and suggested that Chevron...
...Correa administration said Tuesday that while it had thus far seen no evidence of government corruption in the videos, it would investigate the matter "thoroughly, aggressively and fairly." On Wednesday, Ecuadorian justice officials announced they were opening an investigation into the possible government corruption, as well as whether the videotaping had violated laws. In any event, the scandal promises to delay the completion of a trial that has already spanned two decades and two continents. It began in the early 1990s in New York, after settlers and indigenous tribes in the Amazon oil towns of Coca, Lago Agrio and Shushufindi...
...admitting that he has already decided that Chevron is guilty - and they allegedly implicate him in a scheme to snag $3 million in bribes from firms hoping to win oil-cleanup contracts after his ruling. Also implicated are high-ranking officials in the government of leftist Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, an outspoken critic of the U.S. (See pictures of the Amazon contamination that's at the center of the Chevron-Ecuador lawsuit...
Ironically, Chevron in 2003 requested that the trial be moved to Lago Agrio, believing the conservative Ecuadorian government at the time would be more sympathetic. Indeed, in 1998 the government had declared that Texaco's $40 million cleanup of the sullied Amazon area was satisfactory. But three years later, Correa was elected, and Chevron has complained ever since that his administration has interfered in the case and prodded the judges overseeing it - including Nuñez, who took over last year - toward the plaintiffs...
Chevron executives have been under increasing pressure from shareholders who are fearful of an unfavorable verdict. But the scandal probably has the Correa administration chafing as well, especially since a tainted legal system could compromise its efforts to win most-favored-nation trade status from the U.S. Congress this year...