Arbitraje AmbientalLago Agrio

The case was brought by 48 individuals against Chevron Corporation for damages allegedly caused by its subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company ("Texpet"), while producing oil in the Amazon from the early 1970s through 1990. Texpet, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, was a minority operating partner in a Consortium with state-owned PetroEcuador. The Lago Agrio plaintiffs sought monetary damages for alleged collective harms, including claims TexPet failed to remediate environmental impacts.

That corrupt process led to the issuance of a judgment (the "Lago Agrio Judgment") by the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos in February 2011, awarding $18.2 billion to the plaintiffs. That judgment was affirmed by an intermediate appellate court (the appellate division of the Provincial Court of Sucumbíos) in January 2012 and then increased by that same court to about $19 billion in August 2012. In November 2013, the National Court of Justice affirmed the judgment but halved the amount to $9.5 billion.

Chevron's Notice of Arbitration was amended to include denial of justice as evidence of plaintiffs' lawyers' fraud and collusion with court emerged over the next two years. The international arbitration Tribunal, convened under the BIT, seeks to determine whether Ecuador has violated its obligations under its contracts with Texaco and under the U.S.-Ecuador BIT, including its obligation to provide fair and impartial courts to resolve disputes.