Chevron Ordered to Pay Ecuador $8.6B

Time for Chevron to get its checkbook out? An Ecuadorian court Monday ordered the California-based oil giant to pay $8.6 billion in damages for oil pollution to the Amazon region. But some say the town that filed the suit might not be able to celebrate yet, as international tribunals at The Hague ordered Ecuador to temporarily withhold enforcing any potential rulings against Chevron, which inherited the suit when it bought Texaco in 2001. The ruling breaks the damages down this way: Chevron must pay $5.4 billion to restore polluted soil, $1.4 billion to create a health system for the Amazon community, $800 million to treat sick people affected by the pollution, and about $1 billion to restore the ecosystem. The judge also said that the amount could double if Chevron doesn’t apologize publicly to the plaintiffs. In a statement, Chevron called Monday’s ruling “illegitimate and unenforceable.”