Aquinda v. Texaco, Inc.

OPINION AND ORDER

RAKOFF, District Judge.

Residents of the Oriente region of Ecuador have twice brought class actions against Texaco in the courts of the United States, seeking extensive relief for vast devastation to that region caused by the decades of oil exploration and extraction activities of a consortium over which both Texaco and Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, have at various times exercised substantial control. 1 The first such action, filed in Har ids County, Texas in late August, 1993 and promptly removed to the United States District Court for the Southern District…