The battle between Chevron and the Republic of Ecuador over whether Chevron will have to pay more than $18 billion to compensate indigenous peoples from the Amazon region of Ecuador continues to rage on. I first wrote an article about various aspects of the civil litigation for this column in 2010. There, I talked about the origins of the litigation: In the early 1960s, Texaco, Gulf Oil Co. and others had entered into deals with the government of Ecuador to explore for oil in the Oriente district of the country. The exploration proved a success. Ecuador’s oil boom unfortunately came with significant environmental and human costs. This led to a lawsuit filed in 1993 on behalf of indigenous Ecuadorians against Texaco in the Southern District of New York. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, and along with it the Ecuadorian lawsuit.
How did Texaco and then Chevron defend themselves at the time? Like so many other corporate defendants in similar circumstances, they made a motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds. After bouncing between the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for several years, after a thorough hearing in the district court on the issue of whether Ecuador was an adequate alternative forum Chevron submitted expert testimony to convince the court that Ecuadorian courts were fair the Second Circuit ultimately affirmed the dismissal in 2002.
