The US Supreme Court has rejected Ecuador’s challenge to a $96million international arbitration award in favour of energy company Chevron in a dispute over oil fields in the country.
The high court’s refusal to hear the case leaves in place an August 2015 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia which upholds a 2011 award in Chevron’s favour from The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The dispute originates from a 1973 deal which had called for Texaco Petroleum to develop oil fields in exchange for selling oil to Ecuador’s government at below-market rates.
Texaco had filed a number of lawsuits in the 1990s which accused Ecuador of violating the contract.
In 2006, an arbitration proceeding was initiated by Chevron at The Hague, which claimed Ecuador’s courts had failed to resolve the lawsuits in a timely manner between the country and the US.
A panel then awarded Chevron $96million.
A lawsuit was then also filed in Washington which sought a judgement to confirm the panel’s decision in order to collect the award.
But after a federal judge affirmed the award three years ago, Ecuador appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.