Chevron lawsuit: U.S. judge Rejects Petition

U.S. judge, Lewis Kaplan, temporarily blocked the enforcement of an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador against Chevron, he rejected applicants’ petition to get him out of the case.

The district judge rejected the accusations that say he took sides in the lawsuit and called their alleged improper comments and opinions (the note does not specify their statements) as “perfectly normal.”

The legal battle between Ecuador’s Amazon communities and the American company, which has been 18 years in the judicial process, focuses on allegations that the former Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron a decade ago, polluted parts of the Ecuadorian jungle in  the seventies and eighties, it also got local residents sick and damaged their land.

On March 7 last, Kaplan had issued a preliminary ruling to prevent the plaintiffs in Ecuador to try to get money out of their country.

Now, Judge Kaplan set for Nov. 14 the trial date, to say whether that opinion will be left as permanent.

Source: Daily El Comercio