Ecuador investigating Chevron claims

Ecuadorean authorities are looking into accusations by Chevron that the judge involved in a $27 billion environmental lawsuit against the US supermajor is guilty of misconduct and involvement in a bribery scheme.

Chevron said that it would ask to have Judge Juan Nunez disqualified from the decades-old case, after giving Ecuadorean and US officials a secretly recorded video of Nunez talking of ruling against Chevron later this year.

Chevron said the video shows a man at another meeting identifying himself as a representative of Ecuador's ruling party and discussing a $3 million bribe for contracts, of which Nunez would get a third.

Ecuador's Attorney General Washington Pesantez was examining the case to decide what action authorities should take, a spokesman for his office said today in a Reuters report.

"We have to analyze everything here and carry out an investigation," the country's Inspector General, Diego Garcia, told local press.

Both offices are responsible for investigating cases involving corruption of public employees and justice officials and demands made by foreign companies.

Judge Nunez dismissed allegations of bribery.

"My duty is to decide a sentence according to procedure, nothing more," he was quoted by a local newspaper as saying.

The lawsuit against Chevron is registered in the oil town of Lago Agrio, where indigenous communities have accused the company of damaging the environment and their health while operating petroleum facilities in the region.

The plaintiffs, represented by US-based lawyer Steven Donziger, have said that Texaco dumped billions of gallons of polluted water in the jungle around where they live for more than two decades before the company left Ecuador in the early 1990s.

Chevron, which purchased Texaco in 2001, has complained before about political interference in the case.

An expert appointed by the Ecuadorean court said last year that Chevron should pay around $27 billion, including more than $8 billion in unjust enrichment.

The company has said it would fight any adverse judgment.