California judge to rule in Myanmar pipeline case

Lawyers for villagers who claim Unocal Corp turned a blind eye to human rights abuses while building a natural gas pipeline in Myanmar urged a judge on Wednesday to find the oil giant liable for damages or risk creating "havoc on the global economy."
But an attorney for the El Segundo, California, oil company said the villagers sued Unocal, and not the subsidiaries involved in the pipeline, as part of a "massive publicity campaign" to pressure the parent company to leave military-ruled Myanmar, the former Burma.
"From day one, the plaintiffs and their supporters had one target in mind and that was Unocal Corp and its wholly owned subsidiary Union Oil Co," defence attorney Daniel Petrocelli said during closing arguments.
"These (subsidiary) corporations are solvent and have enormous resources far beyond most companies," Petrocelli said. "The last company you would sue would be Unocal if you were seeking redress instead of politics."
The daylong closing arguments in Los Angeles Superior Court capped the first phase of the two-part trial that began December 9 and included about nine days of testimony.
Judge Victoria Chaney is expected to decide on Friday whether the 15 villagers can sue Unocal for reparations rather than the subsidiaries that invested in the $1.2 billion Yadana pipeline between the Andaman Sea and Thailand.
The villagers' attorneys, Dan Stormer and Terry Collingsworth, argued on Wednesday that Unocal set up "a whole series of paper companies" to avoid liability for slavery, murder and torture committed by the Myanmar military, which guarded the pipeline from 1993 until its completion in 1998.
To allow the parent company to escape blame for the alleged crimes perpetrated on the villagers "would wreak havoc on the global economy," Collingsworth said.
"They are standing here saying, 'you can't touch us," he said. "If Unocal is able to get away with this, people in the backrooms and boardrooms (of American corporations) will talk about 'doing a Unocal'. The Enron defendants will kick themselves for not thinking of it."