Chevron Canada Tattooed In US $9.51 Billion Environmental Damages Action - No Piercings Yet

On September 4, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada released its long-awaited decision in the case of Chevron Corporation v. Yaiguaje.  The ruling settles the law in Canada in terms of the threshold issue of when Canadian courts can assert jurisdiction to deal with actions brought in Canada to enforce foreign judgments.  It leaves a number of other very important issues unanswered, for the time being. 

The case involves a law suit against Texaco commenced over twenty years ago in Ecuador by a group of plaintiffs on behalf of some 30,000 Ecuadorian villagers.  The Ecuadorian courts awarded the plaintiffs US $17.2 Billion in damages as a result of extensive environmental pollution in their region arising out of oil development activities.  This amount was later reduced to US $9.51 Billion.