Argentine Judge Slaps Embargo on $19 Billion in Chevron Assets Amazon Defense Coalition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | November 7, 2012

For more information, contact:
Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109, karen@hintoncommunications.com
Caroline Bennett, 415-487-9600 x327, caroline@amazonwatch.org

Buenos Aires, Argentina – In a major blow to Chevron's effort to avoid paying a historic $19 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador, an Argentine judge today signed the first of what is expected to be many orders freezing billions of dollars of assets owned by the U.S. oil company.

The order, signed by Judge Elcuj Miranda of the Commercial Court of Justice in Buenos Aries, freezes almost all Chevron assets in Argentina pending enforcement of the Ecuador judgment. The embargo applies to 100% of Chevron's capital in Argentina, 100% of dividends, all of Chevron's stake in pipeline operator Oleoductos del Valle SA, 40% of Chevron's oil sales to Argentine refineries, and 40% of the money Chevron has deposited in Argentine banks, said Enrique Bruchou, the lawyer who represents the indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador who brought the lawsuit.

In 2011, Chevron was found liable in Ecuador for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related health problems. A video on the case can be seen here; a written summary of the evidence can be read here; and a segment from the U.S. news show 60 Minutes on the case can be viewedhere.

Since Chevron has refused to pay the Ecuador judgment despite submitting to jurisdiction there, lawyers for the affected rainforest communities filed an action last week to seize the oil giant's assets in Argentina. The affected communities filed asset seizure actions against Chevron in the last few weeks in Canada, Brazil, and Ecuador.

Chevron has at least $2 billion worth of assets in Argentina, said Bruchou. The freeze order applies to the entire $19 billon amount of the Ecuador judgment, meaning that Chevron will effectively be barred from investing further in Argentina unless it wants to risk seizure of those assets as well.

"We are now on the fast track to collection in our two-decade struggle to force Chevron to clean up its awful environmental disaster," said Luis Yanza, the Ecuadorian community organizer and driving force behind the lawsuit since it was filed in 1993.