Chevron awaits verdict in Ecuador damage case

Parties to a case in which Chevron is accused of responsibility for environmental damage in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest are regrouping ahead of a potential verdict that could involve record compensation.

The US company faces claims it is responsible for damage caused by oil extraction between 1964 and 1990 by Texaco, a firm that Chevron bought in 2001.

Chevron has denied the charges in the long-running case and has made its own allegations of corruption against judge Juan Nunez, who is overseeing the procedures. The oil giant posted on its website videos it says shows members of President Rafael Correa's Alianza Pais party promising a $3 million (Dh11m) "commission" to Nunez once he hands down a verdict against Chevron. The videos provoked a fire?storm and rebuttals by government officials, and prompted Nunez on Thursday to offer to recuse himself from the case.

Chevron's release of the footage, shot on hidden cameras, came shortly before Nunez was expected to announce his verdict on the case in October.

The stakes are high, with experts estimating in 2008 that Chevron could be liable for damages of up to $27 billion. If correct, the figure would be significantly higher that the record $5bn, later reduced to $500m, that ExxonMobil was ordered to pay after an oil spill in Alaska.

The case comes against the backdrop of increasingly tense relations between Ecuador's left-leaning president and foreign oil companies in the country, who are reassessing their operations.

In 2007, shortly after taking office, Correa did not hesitate to characterise Texaco's actions in Ecuador as a "crime against humanity", suggesting that "entire villages in the Amazon" has been wiped out as a result of their environmental damage. The indigenous communities who first filed the case said they will continue to pursue Chevron, even seeking to have the company's US assets seized, if the court does not rule in their favour.

Ecuador's Government on Wednesday denied allegations of impropriety against it.

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