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US Court Decision would not nullify compensations
Posted On 20 Jun 2017
Ecuadornews:
The Supreme Court of the United States refused yesterday to file an appeal filed by attorney Steven Donziger and two Ecuadorians regarding the Chevron’s environmental pollution case in the Amazon.
The Court’s decision, taken yesterday morning, was interpreted by the transnational as a victory. But hours later, both the Attorney General’s Office and the lawyer of the affected Pablo Fajardo pointed out that this ruling does not affect either the arbitration between Chevron and Ecuador nor the payment process of compensations.
Fajardo explained that this is not a sentence, but the non-acceptance of an appeal by the lawyers of the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, since Donziger’s action is in a personal capacity and the current lawyers never went to that court.
“It is not a defeat because we never appealed and this ruling does not affect at all the sentencing actions that we have raised in Canada, Brazil, and Argentina,” Fajardo said.
The attorney for the affected parties added that they seek to recover $ 9.5 billion as a compensation in those countries because the transnational company does not have those assets in Ecuador.
Chevron must account for the pollution caused between 1964 and 1992 by Texaco in the Amazon. Chevron says that a 1998 agreement between Texaco and Ecuador exempts it from liability. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001. (I)
