Lago Agrio oil field US attorney, Steven Donziger, had used "corrupt means," including payment of almost US$300,000 in bribes, to obtain the 2011 court verdict in Ecuador. The judge did not rule on the underlying issue of environmental damages. While the US ruling does not affect the decision of the court in Ecuador, it has blocked efforts to collect damages from Chevron in US courts. Donziger and the two Ecuadorian defendants appealed, and on August 8, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment against them in all respects. In September 2018, the District of Columbia
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador the case left by Texaco and was said to be required to pay 9 billion dollars in damages. This is known to be one of the largest environmental lawsuits award recorded. Ethnic Wage Gap in Ecuador Ecuador has a history of Spanish colonization of indigenous people that were enslaved, abused, and exploited. Eventually the country adapted the French Neo-Lamarck ideology leading to “mestizaje.” This “mestizaje” began in the sixteenth century where white colonizers began to mix with indigenous to “improve” the indigenous race. Ecuador’s historical background has left the country with a very stratified social environment. This is the nucleus