The US Supreme Court Tuesday said it will not hear Chevron's appeal of a lower court decision upholding the right of Ecuadorean plaintiffs to collect a $18 billion civil judgment against the oil company.
Chevron was appealing a decision earlier this year by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That decision, in overturning a district court ruling, allowed the plaintiffs in the long-running lawsuit to collect the damages awarded in 2011 by an Ecuadorean court.
The plaintiffs sued Texaco in the 1990s, alleging massive pollution in parts of the country caused by Texaco's oil exploration efforts.
Chevron, which subsequently purchased Texaco, had appealed the decision, saying the Ecuadorean court ruling was the result of fraud.
"While Chevron is disappointed that the court denied our petition, we will continue to defend against the plaintiffs' lawyers' attempts to enforce the fraudulent Ecuadorean judgment, and to further expose their misconduct in our pending RICO case in New York and other proceedings," Chevron said in a statement.
Chevron became the defendant in the case after it acquired Texaco in 2001.
