On Tuesday, Chevron Corp filed a case in a New York federal court claiming that a group of villagers in Ecuador and their lawyer bribed an Ecuadorean court to issue an USD 18 billion judgment against the oil company. In the trial that began Tuesday, Chevron sought the judge to stop the villagers and their lawyer Steven Donziger from going to US courts to obtain enforcement of the Ecuadorean decision.

Chevron Spokesman Morgan Crinklaw said, "We believe that any jurisdiction that observes the rule of law will find that the judgment is illegal and unenforceable because it's a product of fraud."

Meanwhile, Donziger and the villagers said they did not do anything wrong when they obtained judgment. They accused USD District Judge Lewis Kaplan of being biased against them.

According to a Reuters report, the case was the latest in the long saga of the battle involving pollution in the Amazon. The contamination occurred from 1963 to 1992 in an oil field owned by Texaco. The site was located in northeastern Ecuador. The oil field was later purchased by Chevron in 2001, according to Reuters.