A Canadian court has rejected an attempt by Ecuadorian communities to enforce a judgment against US supermajor Chevron they obtained in their home country, saying the company's local subsidiary is not liable for the parent, Chevron said on Friday.
The decision in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice came after the company last year persuaded a federal appeals court to block enforcement of the judgment in the United States, which it says was obtained through bribery and fraud.
The rulings dealt a blow to some Ecuadorian communities and American lawyer Steven Donziger, who has spent more than two decades battling Chevron to hold it responsible for pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest.
Representatives of residents of Ecuador's Lago Agrio region were trying to force Chevron to pay for water and soil contamination caused from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.
While not disputing that pollution occurred, Chevron has said Donziger and his associates went too far, including by arranging the ghostwriting of a key environmental report and bribing the presiding judge in Ecuador.
A Canadian lawyer for the Ecuadorian communities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
