After years of appeals, Ecuador has finally paid Chevron over $100 million tied to a decades long contract dispute.
According to Reuters, Ecuador’s central banker Diego Martinez said on a local radio show that the country has paid Chevron $112 million tied to the dispute.
The amount included interest as well as the initial award amount of $96 million granted by the Hague in 2011.
“We don’t agree with how these international mechanisms work … however, we are respectful and we fulfill our international obligations,” Martinez reportedly said on a local radio show.
Chevron told Bloomberg that it is “pleased that the Republic of Ecuador has met its international obligation by paying this award.”
The dispute centered on an agreement initially signed by Texaco in 1973 to develop fields in Ecuador and sell crude back to the Ecuadorian government at below-market prices.
Chevron acquired Texaco in 2000 and initiated arbitration proceedings at the Hague in 2006.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal brought by the Ecuadorian government over the arbitration award.
The arbitration award is not related to another legal dispute between Chevron and Ecuador related to a contentious pollution case.
That case stretches back to the early 1960s when Texaco allegedly spilled millions of gallons of toxic wastewater in the Amazon rain forest while operating in Ecuador.
An Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron in 2011 and awarded a group of villagers represented by American attorney Steve Donziger an $18 billion judgement.
That award was later reduced to $9.5 billion.
However, the judgment was overturned by a U.S. federal judge in 2014 after Donziger was found to have violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The judge also found Donziger had engineered a scheme to coerce court officials and others involved in the case.
Donziger has denied any wrongdoing and is currently appealing the decision.
The Supreme Court of Gibraltar granted Chevron a $28 million award last year after issuing a judgment against Amazonia Recovery Ltd, a Gibraltar-based company established to receive and distribute funds tied to the judgement.
The court also granted a permanent injunction against Amazonia that prevents the firm from providing any assistance or support in the case against Chevron.
