King & Spalding Secures Historic $221 Million Award for Chevron in Long-Running Chevron v. Ecuador Investment Treaty Arbitration

King & Spalding has secured a historic award of damages for Chevron in the long-running Chevron v. Ecuador investment treaty arbitration. The $221 million award, issued by a three-member Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, represents the culmination of more than two decades of work by King & Spalding lawyers, and it constitutes one of the largest awards of legal fees as damages in history.

Chevron initiated the arbitration in 2009 pursuant to the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty ( “BIT”), seeking to hold Ecuador accountable for breaching its 1995 public environmental settlement agreement with a Texaco subsidiary, and for committing a denial of justice through Ecuadorian courts’ participation in a fraudulent scheme — replete with bribery, ghostwriting of supposedly neutral expert reports, and other violations — to uphold a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for alleged public environmental harm. The BIT Tribunal held Ecuador liable on both counts in 2018.

In its recent award on damages, it awarded Chevron $221 million, including pre-award interest, for legal fees and costs that Chevron incurred as a result of Ecuador’s treaty breaches. These included costs incurred in dozens of legal proceedings spanning multiple continents, through which Chevron exposed the judicial fraud, bribery, and corruption and successfully prevented enforcement of the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment worldwide.

The Tribunal found that these costs reflected reasonable mitigation measures in response to the threat posed by the fraudulent judgment, and it rejected Ecuador’s argument that Chevron should have relied merely on defending any judgment enforcement proceedings.

The King & Spalding team was led by Doak Bishop, Wade Coriell, Elizabeth Silbert and Craig Miles. During the damages phase of the arbitration, core team members included Jessica Beess und Chrostin, Sara McBrearty, Eldy Roche, Nate Bilhartz, Tim McKenzie, Carson Bennett, Viva Dadwal and Sophia Harms. The team also included Tracie Renfroe and Anisha Sud.