Lexpert Magazine

July 2019

Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.

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16 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | JULY 2019 EVEN WITH A BEDROCK LEGAL PRINCIPLE AT STAKE, ECUADOREAN VILLAGER'S BATTLE WITH CHEVRON AD THE EQUITIES AT ITS HEART BY JULIUS MELNITZER THE ART OF THE CASE: PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK I looked at the stuff and said yes." at is Alan Lenczner's succinct sum- mary of the advice he gave to a group of Ecuadorean plaintiffs who consulted his firm, Lenczner Slaght Royce Griffin Smith LLP, about whether there was any chance of enforcing their US$9.5 billion (Ecuadorean) judgment against Chevron Corporation by seizing the shares and as- sets of its seventh-level subsidiary, Chevron Canada Limited. Never mind that success in Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corporation depended on piercing the iconic "corporate veil" and undermin- ing the principle of corporate separateness, a mainstay of the common law since 1896; never mind that there was no suggestion that the corporate structure to which the Canadian company belonged was an in- strument of fraud or wrongdoing — one of the few circumstances in which courts have been willing to ignore the corporate veil; never mind that Chevron Canada had done absolutely nothing wrong and was " A TALE OF TWO EQUITIES

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