Unocal to Urge Judge to Strike Criticism

Unocal Corp. said it would ask a judge today to withdraw her criticism of the company for what she said was its comparison of forced labor in Myanmar to compulsory community service, such as jury duty.

The El Segundo oil and gas company said it also would ask Superior Court Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney to strike her observation that “Unocal had specific knowledge that the use of forced labor was likely, and nevertheless chose to proceed” with the Yadana natural gas pipeline project in the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma.

Chaney ruled last week that California law would apply in the case against Unocal, which is accused in a lawsuit of complicity in human rights abuses, including murder, rape and forced labor, carried out by Myanmar’s military. An arm of the military junta that rules Myanmar is a partner in the $1.2-billion line.

Unocal’s complaints are about last week’s ruling, in which she rejected its request that the case be tried under the laws of Bermuda, where its pipeline subsidiary is incorporated, and the laws of Myanmar, where the crimes allegedly occurred. A trial is set to begin Sept. 22 in Los Angeles. The plaintiffs are 15 anonymous Myanmar refugees.

Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Unocal, said the company was considering an appeal of the ruling. But he said Unocal would ask Chaney to rewrite elements of her opinion, including her discussion of Myanmar’s Village and Towns Acts, which until 1999 allowed forced labor.

Chaney wrote that “this court would refrain from applying” those acts, “even in the unlikely case that these statutes authorized the violent and oppressive behavior at issue in this (which Defendants repeatedly and reproachably liken to ‘jury duty’).”

Petrocelli said Chaney was mistaken. “We never argued that the mistreatment of people was authorized by any provision of Myanmar law and was comparable to serving jury duty,” he said.

In a brief in the case, Unocal had argued that “various forms of compulsory labor have been and continue to be widely recognized as a legitimate government prerogative. In this country, for example, it has long been recognized that compulsory service for jury duty, military service and even work on public roads are constitutionally permissible.... Thus, at the outset, it is clear that compulsory labor may be entirely lawful.”

In another brief, Unocal outlined how Myanmar law allowed authorities to conscript civilians as guides and messengers, to supply food and to carry supplies. “These services, which are lawfully exacted in Myanmar, are not authorized by California law,” Unocal said. “Likewise, some compulsory community service authorized in California, such as jury duty, is not required in Myanmar.”

The plaintiffs have argued that a 1992 report prepared for Unocal by consulting firm Control Risks Group put Unocal on notice that the project was likely to lead to forced labor.

Petrocelli said the plaintiffs were “just wrong.”

“We didn’t have that knowledge, and it never happened.”

The report said: “Throughout Burma the government habitually makes use of forced labour to construct roads.”

Petrocelli said Unocal executives understood that to mean forced labor was used on public projects, not that conscripted workers would be part of projects involving private firms.

On Wednesday, Chaney will hear several motions, including a plaintiffs’ request for sanctions for Unocal’s alleged tardiness in producing documents.

The company turned over 1,613 pages May 1, and Jeffrey Barker, a lawyer for Unocal, said in an accompanying letter that they had only recently been discovered. He said the company wasn’t obliged to turn over the documents but did so out of an “abundance of caution.”

Anne Richardson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, characterized some of the documents in a report to Chaney as “extremely important and relevant.”

Among them is a note written by a former Unocal employee asking a consultant to help find a way to ensure that “porters used by the Army on our project here are treated humanely and get paid.”

Richardson said in a court filing that the note “is not only an admission that porters were used on the project, but also serves to counter Unocal’s claim that they had no way to control the Army’s treatment of porters.”

Petrocelli said the May 1995 note didn’t prove that. “Certain individuals learned of claims that the Army was using porters in connection with its security in the pipeline region, to build things like the barracks, or that they were carrying their supplies -- that the battalions were using porters -- and that was the issue that was being addressed,” he said. “Porters did not build the pipeline.”