Chevron celebrates the ruling of a Brazilian court against Ecuador
Ecuadornews:
The oil company Chevron today celebrated the decision of the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil to reject for lack of jurisdiction an attempt to execute the Ecuadorian judgment against the US company.
“Courts around the world continue to reject attempts to profit from this fraudulent judgment,” R. Hewitt Pate, Chevron’s legal vice president and legal manager, said in a statement.
According to the company, the Ecuadorian petition for the execution of the judgment against it has already been rejected by courts in Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States.
The company was condemned by the Ecuadorian justice system for environmental contamination between 1964 and 1992, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but Chevron has refused to pay compensation considering that this ruling was the product of a fraud against it, supposedly supported by the Government of Ecuador.
“The decision reinforces our belief that any jurisdiction that respects the rule of law will find that the Ecuadorian ruling is illegitimate and unenforceable,” Hewitt Pate added in the statement. Chevron recalled that the ruling of the Brazilian court coincides with another decided by an Argentine court on October 31, which also rejected the execution of the case due to lack of jurisdiction.
Last July, the Court of Appeals of The Hague also rejected an Ecuadorian request to review the arbitration rulings that gave the reason to the US oil company in its conflict with Ecuador for its responsibility in oil spills.
The Ecuadorian claims date back to when Texaco Petroleum (TexPet), which became a subsidiary of Chevron in 2001, was a minority partner in an oil production consortium in Ecuador together with state oil company Petroecuador from 1964 to 1992. (I)