Legal News

Chevron Fights to Keep John Keker Out of Ecuador Racketeering Case

By Chad Bray

Things are getting a little testy in the long-running Chevron litigation over alleged environmental damage in Ecuador.

The oil company’s lawyers have filed a motion to preclude John Keker, the lawyer for Steven Donziger, the Ecuadorian plaintiff’s U.S. legal adviser, from appearing in court on Donzinger’s behalf. Click here for the motion.

As a reminder, Chevron is seeking an injunction prohibiting the enforcement  of a $8.6 billion judgment in Ecuador, which was issued in February.  Chevron has filed a separate racketeering lawsuit against the Ecuadorian plaintiff’s lawyers in the U.S., claiming they’re trying to extort and defraud the company.

Shortly before the judgment was returned, a federal judge in New York granted a temporary restraining order stopping the enforcement of any judgment in the case. An international arbitration panel also has granted a preliminary injunction.

It’s unusual for a party to fight the other side’s request to appear pro hac vice, or to be admitted to practice in a jurisdiction just for the case at issue. As long as they are in good standing and admitted elsewhere, lawyers are fairly routinely allowed to appear with little hassle beyond filing a brief motion and paying a fee to the court clerk. (Sometimes they’re allowed to file the pro hac vice motion after the court hearing.)

Keker, of Keker & Van Nest in San Francisco, has appeared in the Southern District of New York several times previously, including as the defense attorney for former Credit Suisse banker Frank Quattrone, but isn’t admitted in the district.

Gibson Dunn’s Randy Mastro said in court papers late Friday that he has never filed an opposition to a pro hac vice order in 30 years of practice, but did so because of a “series of contumacious acts” by Keker and his firm.

“It appears that Defendant Steven Donziger has now found counsel willing to take dictation and repeat anything the client says, no matter how demonstrably false or contrary to law,” Mastro said. “But that does not mean this court must endorse the choice, especially given the abuses Mr. Keker and his firm already have committed in just the past two weeks.”

Mastro claims Keker violated a court order and Southern District rules by filing a brief related to the preliminary injunction motion after the court’s deadline, by filing a “frivilous application” to transfer the case to another judge and by making alleged “misrepresentations” to the court.

On Monday, Keker said he plans to respond in court, but that Chevron seems to want to litigate the case without opposition to its views.

“I think that’s wrong. I think that’s bullying,” Keker said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 07, 2011 (boomark / email).