Birds on the Brain

thepeoplesrecord:

In other Chevron news: Chevron faces deadline in $19 billion Ecuador case
August 7, 2012

U.S. oil giant Chevron has until midnight tonight to pay a US $19.04 billion Ecuador court judgment for polluting Amazon waterways or officially default and face another lawsuit to seize its assets, this time in Ecuador. Such collection lawsuits are pending against Chevron in Canada and Brazil.

Ecuador Judge Liliana Ortiz on Friday signed an order giving Chevron until midnight tonight to deposit the funds necessary to remediate the oil contamination, which included the dumping of more than 16 billion gallons of toxic waste from oil production into Amazon waterways.

Judge Ortiz’s order comes after almost 19 years of litigation.

The case, Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco, began on November 3, 1993 when 30,000 indigenous people and farmers from Ecuador’s Amazon filed a class action suit against Texaco in New York federal court alleging massive oil contamination of the rainforest.

For 10 years, Texaco argued before U.S. judges that the case should be transferred to Ecuador’s courts. In 2002, a U.S. federal judge granted Texaco’s motion and removed the case to Ecuador on the condition that Texaco submit to jurisdiction there and be bound by any ruling of the Ecuadorian courts.

In the meantime, Chevron bought Texaco in 2001, assuming its liabilities and defense of the case…

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