NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge says Amazon rainforest residents who obtained a multibillion-dollar judgment against Chevron in Ecuador cannot try to enforce it through U.S. courts, because it was obtained through fraud.
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the nearly 500-page written ruling Tuesday. It follows a trial last year that pitted rainforest tribes against the San Ramon, Calif.-based oil company.
In February 2011, a judge in Ecuador issued an $18 billion judgment against Chevron Corp. in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 30,000 Amazon residents. The judgment was for environmental damage caused by Texaco during its operation of an oil consortium in the rainforest from 1972 to 1990.
Ecuador's highest court last year upheld the verdict but reduced the judgment to about $9 billion.
Lawyers in the case did not immediately respond to email messages.
