The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday declined to hear [order list, PDF] a challenge [cert. petition, PDF] by Ecuador [BBC profile] over an arbitration award [arbitration order, PDF] to Chevron Corp [official website]. In 2011 Chevron was issued a $96 million international arbitration award over a dispute involving development of oil fields in Ecuador. The award was issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration [official website] in The Hague. The Supreme Court let stand the ruling [opinion, PDF] of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website], which found in favor of Chevron. The dispute is a result [Reuters report] of a 1973 deal by Texaco Petroleum, whom Chevron later acquired, where Texaco agreed to develop oil fields in exchange for selling oil to Ecuador’s government at below-market price. Chevron initiation arbitration proceedings at The Hague in 2006 claiming Ecuador’s court failed to resolve the lawsuit in a timely manner.

This is one of several legal battles waged in the last few years regarding Chevron’s practices in Ecuador. In September the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favor [JURIST report] of Ecuadorian villagers seeking to enforce a multi-billion dollar judgment against Chevron. In March of last year Judge Lewis Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled [JURIST report] that US courts could not be used to enforce the Ecuadorian ruling against Chevron. In ruling Kaplan stated that the Ecuadorian proceedings were fraught with corruption and the punishment did not “justify the means.” Later that month Chevron filed suit [JURIST report] in the Southern District of New York against attorney Steven Donziger for $32 million in fees relating to a suit it won against his firm for fraud and racketeering throughout the course of the 2011 Ecuadorian litigation.