By Colin Kellaher

Chevron Corp. (CVX) on Thursday said an appeals court in Argentina has rejected an attempt to enforce a $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against the company, the latest win for the oil giant in a legal dispute that has lasted decades.

Chevron said a three-judge panel from the Chamber of Appeals in Buenos Aires unanimously dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that Chevron has no legal presence or assets in Argentina and that the judgment can't be enforced against Chevron Argentina SRL and other indirect local units because they are separate legal entities with no connection to the case.

The legal saga began in 1993, when a group of Ecuadorean plaintiffs sued Texaco Inc., arguing that Texaco's oil drilling caused pollution that sickened villagers in the Amazon rain forest. Chevron inherited the lawsuit when it acquired Texaco in 2001.

A court in Ecuador awarded a $19 billion judgment--later scaled back to $9.5 billion--to the plaintiffs. However, a U.S. district judge in 2014 found that judgment was obtained through fraud and corruption, a finding that was later upheld by a federal appeals court in Manhattan.

Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 05, 2018 11:57 ET (15:57 GMT)

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