Positive Year for Chevron Disaster Victims in Ecuador, Lawyers Say

Quito, Dec 30 (Prensa Latina) Lawyers for victims of the Chevron disaster in Ecuador said today that 2013 was a positive year for their clients, who are demanding $9.5 billion in compensation for environmental damage in the Amazon.

Lawyers Julio Prieto and Pablo Fajardo told the newspaper El Telegrafo that the optimistic assessment was based on the National Court's ratification of the sentence issued by a provincial court in 2011.

On Nov. 23, the National Court, the highest in Ecuador, turned down a petition for annulment filed by Chevron against the ruling by the Court of Lago Agrio, in Sucumbios province, and upheld the decision that the oil company should compensate the 30,000 residents of the Amazon affected by Chevron's pollution of the region.

Faced with Chevron's refusal to abide by the sentence, the Ecuadorian court also seized the company's 50 trademarks in the country, which will be canceled next year.

Lawyers were satisfied with the recent decision by Canada's Ontario Court of Appeals to accept the Ecuadorian court decision, saying that it should facilitate the payment of compesation.

In the case of Chevron's lawsuit against the plaintiffs and their legal representatives in New York, Prieto and Fajardo were not so optimistic, saying that the process was rigged and paid for by Chevron.

According to Ecuadorian authorities, the U.S. company dumped 16.8 million gallons of oil in the Amazonian ecosystem and 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waters into the soils, and that it burned 235 billion cubic feet of gas in the open air.