Court Rules Environmentalist Suit Against Chevron Tainted by Fraud -- Oil company wins RICO suit against attorneys seeking to enforce multibillion-dollar judgment -- By Lachlan Markay, The Washington Free Beacon

A massive civil judgment against a U.S. oil company was obtained by fraud and cannot be enforced in American courts, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a major blow against the environmentalist plaintiffs.

The ruling is a win for oil company Chevron, which has battled for years a multibillion-dollar judgment obtained in Ecuador. The company called the decision “a resounding victory for Chevron and our stockholders.”

The company has no assets in the country, so plaintiffs have sought to enforce the judgment elsewhere, including in the United States. Chevron filed a racketeering suit against the plaintiffs’ attorneys in an attempt to prevent enforcement in the United States.

The Tuesday decision from a U.S. district court in New York makes it highly unlikely that Chevron will be forced by American authorities to pony up the $9.5 billion sought by the plaintiffs.

 “The decision in the Lago Agrio case was obtained by corrupt means,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his decision. “The defendants here may not be allowed to benefit from that in any way.”

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