Chevron trial begins in USA

With the presentation of the initial arguments of the parties began yesterday in New York, the  trial for fraud and extortion against a lawyer and advisors of the plaintiffs of Chevron in Ecuador for environmental damages.

The team of lawyers from Chevron and of the accused arrived  on tuesday for the first time to present the case before federal judge Lewis Kaplan, of the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York.

Lawyers on both sides had their first hearing yesterday.

The case is a consequence of the sentence imposed by the High Court of Justice of the province of Sucumbíos (Ecuador) in 2011, which sentenced Chevron to pay more than $ 19 billion for environmental damage caused in the region during the years in which Texaco extracted oil there.

Several inhabitants of the Amazon and their attorneys met yesterday in the Auditorium of the Universidad Andina to express their rejection to the start of the trial of Chevron against them, for alleged conspiracy and extortion.