Chevron Appealing $8.6B Ecuador Ruling

Chevron CVX, the second-largest U.S. oil company, announced in a statement issued Friday after the close of U.S. markets that it is appealing the $8.2 billion ruling made against the company last month by an Ecuadorian court that brought pollution against Texaco, which Chevron acquired a decade ago.

On Tuesday, California-based Chevron was granted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York who ruled that Ecuadorean plaintiffs cannot collect any of the damages awarded by the court in their home country in the U.S. or in other countries.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs had previously acknowledged it would be difficult to collect damages in the U.S. but had hoped to collect some of the award in other Latin American countries where Chevron does business. The company does not operate in Ecuador.

In its appeal filing, Chevron details the pattern of fraud by the plaintiffs' lawyers, supporters and others that has corrupted the trial, as well as the numerous legal and factual defects in the judgment, the company said in a statement. The New York Times reported earlier this week that corruption in Ecuador's legal system has risen since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007.

Through discovery proceedings in the United States, Chevron obtained thousands of documents that memorialize the plaintiffs' lawyers' efforts to pressure judges to rule in their favor, corrupt expert reports, and manufacture evidence, according to the statement.

Chevron is seeking recourse through legal wrangling outside of Ecuador. The company alleges plaintiffs' lawyers falsified documents among other unsavory acts.

The company also claims the Ecuadorian court refused to recognize evidence submitted by Chevron and that the court based its judgment on an unlawful, retroactive application of Ecuador's Environmental Management Act, which was enacted in 1999, after Texaco ceased operations in the country.