NYC Court Limits What Filmmaker Must Give Chevron
By Larry Neumeister
NEW YORK (AP) --A federal appeals court on Thursday limited the amount of raw footage that a filmmaker must release from his documentary about a legal fight between Chevron and Ecuadoreans over oil contamination.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a two-page order that filmmaker Joseph Berlinger no longer has to give Chevron all 600 hours of raw footage that was used to create “Crude,” a documentary that was released last year.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court said Berlinger must produce only the raw footage that shows lawyers for Ecuadoreans who sued Chevron Corp., private or court-appointed experts in that proceeding and current or former officials of Ecuador’s government.
The appeals court also said the raw footage could be used solely for litigation, arbitration or submission to official bodies, whether they be local or international.
The appeals court heard the case a day earlier after a lower court judge had ordered Berlinger to turn over all his raw footage. Berlinger appealed.
Berlinger said he was “extremely pleased” with the ruling because it substantially limits what must be produced.
“Furthermore, the court has expressly prohibited Chevron from using any footage we do turn over in their public relations campaigns, a goal that was extremely important to me,” he said. “The courts have affirmed that documentary filmmakers are journalists deserving of First Amendment protection.”
Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro said he also was “extremely pleased” with the appeals court ruling and that it came quickly so Chevron can obtain the evidence “to defend against a travesty of justice in Ecuador.”
He said plaintiffs’ counsel who sued Chevron were on screen in the film more than 70 percent of the time “so the outtakes are likely to be similarly dominated by them and all of that footage now has to be produced.”
Karen Hinton, who represents lawyers for the Ecuadoreans, strongly disagreed with the court’s decision.
“This ruling undermines investigative journalism during a time when more aggressive inquiry is sorely needed in the oil industry,” she said.
The lawsuit in Ecuador stems from a 17-year-old legal fight. Ecuadoreans say their land was contaminated during three decades of oil exploration and extraction by Texaco Inc., which became a wholly owned subsidiary of San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corp. in 2001.
Chevron says the raw footage will help bolster its case that lawyers for the plaintiffs have worked to manipulate the judicial system in Ecuador for their own benefit.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More