Chevron has filed an appeal with Ecuador’s National Court of Justice to review an order that it must pay $18 billion in damages for polluting the Amazon jungle. Chevron inherited the case when it bought Texaco a decade ago. The appeal argues that the lower courts violated Ecuador’s Constitution by refusing to take corrective action in response to what Chevron calls “extensive fraud and corruption” committed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers and representatives. The plaintiffs have responded by citing Chevron’s own test data in documenting the pollution and arguing that Chevron could be sued for damages by third parties. In related litigation in New York, the plaintiffs also accused the company of mishandling soil and water samples during the trial by maintaining two different laboratories, based on testimony from a Chevron expert.

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