$18bn clean-up bill for Chevron

A judge ordered Chevron to pay $8.6bn (£5.5bn) in environmental damages last February, but the amount was more than doubled because Chevron failed to make a public apology as required by the original ruling.

“We ratify the ruling of February 14 2011 in all its parts, including the sentence for moral reparation,” the court in the Amazonian city of Lago Agrio said.

The events are being watched closely by the oil industry for precedents that could impact other big claims against companies accused of pollution in the countries where they operate.

Chevron yesterday called the ruling “illegitimate” and a fraud.

“Today’s decision is another glaring example of the politicisation and corruption of Ecuador’s judiciary that has plagued this fraudulent case from the start,” it said.

“The Lago Agrio judgment was procured through a corrupt and fraudulent scheme, much of which was captured on film and memorialised in the plaintiffs’ representatives’ own e-mails and correspondence.”

The plaintiffs accused Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, of dumping oil-drilling waste in unlined pits, polluting the forest and causing illness and deaths among indigenous people. They appealed the original court ruling, claiming more money would be needed for the clean-up.

“This [ruling] confirms and ratifies that the company polluted and affected the Amazon,” the plaintiffs said in a statement. “It is necessary to clarify that no amount will be enough to repair all the crime they did in our area, nor will it be enough to bring the dead back to life.”

Chevron had argued that Texaco cleaned up all waste pits for which it was responsible, and said the Ecuadorean judge in the original case had ignored evidence of fraud on the part of the plaintiffs.

Commenting on the latest decision, Ecuador’s left-wing president, Rafael Correa, said: “I think justice has been done.

“The harm that Chevron caused to the Amazon cannot be denied.”