Ecuador: Government Criticizes Oxy Arbitration

The government of Ecuador criticized the ruling of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes that obliges the South American country to pay over one billion dollars to the U.S. based oil firm Occidental Petroleum, also known as Oxy. This is a 40% reduction of the original ruling, which required Ecuador to pay 1.77 billion dollars. In 2006 the government of Alfredo Palacios terminated a contract that gave Oxy permission to explore oil fields in the Amazon Basin and extract 100,000 barrels per day, alleging that the company had sold 40% of its shares without the government’s consent. teleSUR