Question of whether Canada’s courts should hear Ecuador judgement against Chevron amazon cleanup dispute

theglobeandmail.com reported Chevron Corp. is trying to convince Canada’s courts to impose “novel and unnecessary” barriers to block a group of Amazon villagers seeking to enforce a controversial $9.5-billion (U.S.) Ecuadorean environmental judgment against the U.S. oil giant, a coalition of Canadian human-rights groups alleges.The battle over the cleanup bill for oil pollution left in Ecuador’s Lago Agrio region has dogged the company for 13 years. Chevron refuses to pay the amount demanded in the 2011 judgment and condemns it as the product of fraud, bribery and faked evidence.

The tangled fight came to Canada two years ago when the plaintiffs sought to have Ontario’s courts recognize the Ecuadorean judgment and seize Chevron’s Canadian assets, including the company’s stake in Alberta’s oil sands.

Now, the jurisdictional question of whether Canada’s courts should hear the case is due before the Supreme Court of Canada in December, after Chevron challenged an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling ordering it to go ahead. Read Article