Transnational litigation: what can we learn from Chevron–Ecuador?

Resumen

Despite decades of litigation, residents of the Oriente region of Ecuador have been unable to force remediation of, or compensation for, massive pollution from oil development in the 1970s. In 1993 the residents sued Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, in US federal court. In 2002 the US court accepted the oil company’s argument that the case should be heard in Ecuador and dismissed it on condition that the company submit to jurisdiction of Ecuador’s courts. In 2003 the litigation was refiled in Ecuador where a court in 2011 awarded plaintiffs a $8.6 billion judgment against Chevron. By pulling its assets out of Ecuador and pursuing a ‘scorched earth’ litigation strategy to demonize the plaintiffs and their lawyers, Chevron has prevented collection of the judgment. A US court has blocked enforcement by finding that plaintiffs and their lawyers were engaged in fraud. Courts in Argentina, Brazil and Canada have held that Chevron’s subsidiaries in their countries are not responsible for the parent corporation’s debts. The case illustrates how difficult it is to hold multinational corporations accountable for environmental harm in developing countries.