In a 7-0 ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada this month dismissed an appeal by oil giant Chevron that would have stopped Ecuadorian Amazon villagers from using Ontario courts to collect US$9.5 billion in damages for environmental contamination in Ecuador. Chevron had appealed to Canada’s highest tribunal last year, challenging a Dec. 2013 decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal allowing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs to launch proceedings aimed at seizing Chevron Canada assets. The 47 plaintiffs, representing some 30,000 villagers, say they must do so to collect the $9.5 billion that an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay them to remedy years of oilfield pollution in their country’s Amazon region. The Canadian proceeding pitted the principles of limited liability between parent corporations and their... [Log in to read more]