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Exxon fined US$289,000 for obstructing deposition in human rights lawsuit
Kaieteur News – Two years after the counsel for American oil giant, ExxonMobil Corporation obstructed the deposition in an Indonesian human rights lawsuit the oil giant has been fined US$289,000.
According to an Aljazeera report, in 1999 a merger between Mobil Oil Indonesia and Exxon, generated more than US$1bn in annual revenue at the end of the 1990s when it contracted members of the Indonesian army to guard its facility in Aceh at a cost of $500,000 per month.
In 2001, a lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia after allegations that Indonesian villagers were subject to human rights abuses, including sexual assault, torture, rape and wrongful death in and around the ExxonMobil Oil and Gas Plant in Lhoksukon, Aceh Province during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The 11 plaintiffs in the case, some of whom are represented by their families, alleged that soldiers contracted by ExxonMobil conducted sweeping raids aimed at rooting out suspected separatists, torturing and murdering innocent members of the local populace in the process.
However, the oil giant has strenuously denied knowing about any abuses by contractors under its supervision.
After two decades of the Indonesian lawsuit dragging through the courts in the District of Columbian – a Washington, D.C., federal judge on April 14, 2022 fined ExxonMobil for what its counsel did in the deposition. The judge also denied the oil giant “meritless” sanction motion.
According to Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in 2020, Mark Snell, ExxonMobil’s Asia Pacific regional general counsel, severely, repeatedly, and perversely obstructed his own deposition and refused to answer questions, wasted time and provided inaccurate and evasive answers about whether he was reading from his notes and who prepared them.
The court also found that the company’s defense attorneys shared responsibility for Snell’s behaviour and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions.
However, the court denied as “meritless” a sanctions motion by Exxon and ordered that Exxon would pay fees and costs incurred by plaintiffs in litigating their sanctions motion and motion to compel.
The plaintiffs then moved for payment, seeking $321,867.78 in fees and expenses, but Exxon filed an opposition. The court said in an order issued that the appropriate amount was $281,439.25 in fees and granted the full request for $7,461.53 in expenses.
Exxon is represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. The plaintiffs are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, and International Rights Advocates.
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