The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that a group of Ecuadorean villagers are now free to pursue a multi-billion pollution lawsuit against oil giant Chevron in province of Ontario. This latest ruling advancement has finally allowed the Ecuadorian villagers continue with a 2012 lawsuit they launched against Chevron’s Canadian subsidiary in Ontario.
“Canadian courts, like many others, have adopted a generous and liberal approach to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments,” the Canadian Supreme Court said in its unanimous ruling.
The lawsuit launched after an Ecuadorian court ruled in 2011 that Chevron was responsible for the damage and pollution caused to the region during the company’s oil drilling attempts. In addition, the Ecuadorian court also ruled that Chevron should pay $9.5 billion for the damage caused.
For almost three decades, this oil drilling venture caused the region to suffer systematic pollution from multiple sources on a daily basis. The company deliberately polluted rivers and streams that tens of thousands of people depend, spilled millions of gallons of crude oil, and abandoned hazardous waste in hundreds of unlined open-air pits shattered across the region. As a result, the soil, rivers and streams, and groundwater became contaminated.
TeleSUR explains:
[…] Chevron has refused to pay and as a result the plaintiffs were forced to try to enforce the ruling by seeking the seizure of Chevron’s assets in Canada.
Friday’s decision by the Supreme Court affirms that Canada is an appropriate jurisdiction for the case.
“A finding of jurisdiction does nothing more than afford the plaintiffs the opportunity to seek recognition and enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment,” wrote Justice Clement Gasconon on behalf of the court.
“Chevron’s deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and 17 million gallons of crude into the Ecuadorian Amazon created a massive health crisis and remains one of the worst oil-related environmental crimes in history,” Amazon Watch said on the day of the ruling. “After being found guilty of its drill and dump tactics in Ecuador, Chevron has been on the run, spending billions on retaliatory legal attacks seeking to delay justice rather than fulfilling its legal obligations to carry out a full-scale environmental clean-up and provide potable water and health care to the communities it poisoned.”
Ultimately, the Canadian Supreme Court agreed that the province of Ontario had jurisdiction to recognize the $9.5 billion judgment made by the Ecuadorean court. This unanimous decision was reached despite the company’s appeal to the Supreme Court. The Californian-based multinational Chevron Corp. argued that its Canadian assets did not belong to the parent company; however the court rejected this argument.
“This decision is the beginning of the end of Chevron’s abusive and obstructionist litigation strategy to avoid paying for the clean-up of the company’s extensive toxic contamination of our ancestral lands in Ecuador,” said Humberto Piaguaje, executive coordinator of the Union of Persons Affected by Texaco/Chevron, the local organization in Ecuador representing the communities suing Chevron.
“Chevron will now be forced to take the Ecuadorian judgment like any other, something it has desperately tried to avoid since our enforcement action was filed in Canada three years ago,” he said.
“We are confident that once Canadian courts review the fundamental fairness and strength of the judgment, it will be respected and Chevron will be forced to turn over any and all assets necessary to pay the amount ordered by the Ecuadorian court,” Piaguaje concluded. “When that happens, a measure of relief can finally come to thousands of innocent people who have suffered decades of environmental abuse at the hands of the company.”
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