A recent WSJ Law Blog story, “Chevron Asks Judge for $32.3 Million in Attorney Fees After Winning Case,” reports that Chevron Corp. has asked the judge who presided over the racketeering trial to award it $32.3 million in attorney fees—a sum the oil giant said reflects only a portion of the total costs it incurred.  Both sides spent millions of dollars in a bitter legal battle over a record $9.5 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador that Chevron says was fraudulently obtained.  Mr. Donziger, who has denied those charges, led a legal team representing villagers who sued over decades-old pollution from oil exploration in the Amazon.

The fee request (pdf) reflects “36,837 hours billed by Chevron’s outside counsel Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and 139,747 hours billed to Chevron by attorneys at Huron Consulting Group and Merrill Communications LLC,” according to Chevron’s filing on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan.

A Chevron spokesman said in a statement that the company is “seeking to hold Mr. Donziger accountable for his actions by pursuing an award for legal costs incurred in defending the company from his extortionate scheme and in prosecuting our successful RICO suit – an award mandated by the RICO statute.”

Mr. Donziger’s appellate lawyer, Deepak Gupta, issued a statement calling the fee request “a transparent attempt to intimidate anyone from ever having the temerity to sue over wrongdoing that, in this case, devastated thousands of people’s lives, their culture, and their environment.” 

He said “Chevron, one of the world’s richest corporations, dropped its damages claims on the eve of trial to deny the Ecuadorians and Steven Donziger their right to a jury trial…Steven is a solo environmental lawyer who works from the kitchen table of his apartment.  Chevron knows he can’t actually pay those fees – and that’s the point.”

NALFA also reported on this case in, “$1B in Attorney Fees Still Possible in Landmark Chevron Pollution Case”