NY judge rules for Chevron in Ecuador case

A federal judge Tuesday blocked U.S. courts from being used to collect a $9 billion Ecuadorean judgment against Chevron for rain forest damage, saying lawyers poisoned an honorable quest with their illegal and wrongful conduct.

"Justice is not served by inflicting injustice. The ends do not justify the means," U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote. The judge said it was a sad outcome to have to rule that the Ecuadorean court judgment "was obtained by corrupt means," because it will likely never be known whether there was a case to be made against the California-based oil company.

"It is distressing that the course of justice was perverted," Kaplan wrote in a nearly 500-page ruling that followed a trial last year.

He said a New York City lawyer, Steven Donziger, and Ecuadorean lawyers corrupted the case in Ecuador by submitting fraudulent evidence, coercing a judge and arranging to write the multibillion-dollar judgment themselves by promising $500,000 to the Ecuadorean judge to rule in their favor.

Donziger, criticized heavily in the ruling, said he will seek an expedited appeal of "an appalling decision." He accused Kaplan of letting "his implacable hostility toward me, my Ecuadorean clients and their country infect his view of the case."

In a statement, Chevron Corp. called the decision "a resounding victory for Chevron and our stockholders" and said any court that respects the rule of law will find the Ecuadorean judgment "illegitimate and unenforceable."

In February 2011, a judge in Ecuador issued an $18 billion judgment against Chevron in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 30,000 residents. The judgment was for environmental damage caused by Texaco during its operation of an oil consortium in the rain forest from 1972 to 1990. Chevron later bought Texaco.