Chevron is defending itself against false allegations that it is responsible for alleged environmental and social harms in the Amazon region of Ecuador. Chevron has never conducted oil production operations in Ecuador, and its subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. ("TexPet") fully remediated its share of environmental impacts arising from oil production operations prior to 1992. After the remediation was certified by all agencies of the Ecuadorian government responsible for oversight, TexPet received a complete release from Ecuador's national, provincial and municipal governments prior to being acquired by Chevron in 2001. All legitimate scientific evidence submitted during the litigation in Ecuador proves that TexPet's remediation was effective and that the sites it remediated pose no unreasonable risks for human health or the environment.
Ecuador's state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, was the 62.5 percent majority owner of the consortium in which TexPet participated until 1992 and has been the sole owner of greatly expanded oil operations over the past two decades. Petroecuador did not remediate its majority share of pre-1992 impacts and has amassed a poor environmental record since that time. All remaining environmental conditions in the region are the sole legal responsibility of Petroecuador and in December 2011, Petroecuador, announced a $70 million remediation program that would address the balance of the necessary clean-up.
Nevertheless, in February 2011, an adverse judgment was rendered against Chevron by acourt in Lago Agrio. The company maintains that the $18 billion judgment is illegitimate because of documented evidence of fraud and unethical action by the plaintiffs' lawyers and the Ecuadorian government and judiciary.
Despite Chevron's appeal on the grounds that the ruling lacked scientific merit and that it ignores overwhelming evidence that the plaintiffs' lawyers falsified data, pressured scientific experts to "find contamination" where none existed, and ghostwrote supposedly neutral court appointee damage reports as well as part or all of the verdict itself, in January 2012, an appeals panel upheld the lower court judgment.
Chevron does not believe that the Ecuador ruling is enforceable in any court that observes the rule of law. The company will continue to seek to hold accountable the perpetrators of this fraud. Chevron will continue to pursue relief against Ecuador in our pending arbitration and against the plaintiffs' and their representatives in our RICO action. Chevron will resist any enforcement effort and seek to hold anyone who would attempt to enforce the fraudulent judgment in another jurisdiction accountable to the full extent of the law.