$18 billion damage award upheld against Chevron

A court of appeals in Ecuador has upheld an $18 billion damage award issued by a lower court in February against U.S. oil giant Chevron for contamination of the Ecuadorian rainforest by its subsidiary Texaco Petroleum.



After reviewing the 220,000 page trial record for 11 months, the three-member appellate panel in the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios in Lago Agrio ruled Tuesday that laboratory results confirm that pollution existed at Texaco's former well sites hundreds of times higher than permissible norms in Ecuador.


Chevron purchased Texaco in 2001, so the plaintiffs consider Chevron responsible for Texaco's liabilities incurred prior to the purchase.


"This decision confirms what we have been saying for years," said Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer. "Chevron is guilty of extraordinary greed and criminal misconduct that has created a humanitarian crisis in Ecuador that puts thousands of people at risk."


The 30,000 plaintiffs, who are Ecuadorian indigenous people and farmers, said in a statement Tuesday, "The decision by an independent appellate court is yet further confirmation of Chevron's extraordinary greed and criminal misconduct in Ecuador. The decision is based on overwhelming scientific evidence presented at trial that proved Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste that poisoned the water supply of the Amazon rainforest, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancers and other diseases that continue to threaten thousands of innocent lives."

The decision is the largest environmental award in history and is the latest development in an 18-year legal battle to win cleanup of contaminated sites, clean drinking water, and health care.


Texaco is alleged to have caused hundreds of oil spills in Ecuador, many of which were "remediated" by setting them on fire and to have poured sludge from the oil waste pits along dirt roads.


"The judges found ample scientific basis to uphold the damages award, including devastating evidence provided the court by Chevron's own team of technical experts that proved levels of pollution hundreds of times higher than permitted by law," said Karen Hinton the Washington, DC-based spokesperson for the Amazon Defense Coalition, the plaintiffs' organization.