ELR Citation: 42 ELR 20026
No(s). 11-150 (2d Cir. Jan 26, 2012)

The Second Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction enjoining residents from the Lago Agrio region of the Ecuadorian Amazon from enforcing a multibillion dollar judgment awarded by an Ecuadorian court against an oil company for environmental pollution. Below, the court ruled that absent a preliminary injunction, the oil company would be forced to defend itself and litigate the enforceability of the Ecuadorian judgment in multiple proceedings, and that the company raised substantial questions that present a fair ground for litigation as to whether the Ecuadorian judgment is a result of fraud practiced on the Ecuadorian tribunal. But the district court's interpretation of New York's Uniform Foreign Country Money-Judgments Recognition Act was incorrect. Judgment-debtors can challenge a foreign judgment's validity under the Recognition Act only defensively, in response to an attempted enforcement—an effort that the Lago Agrio residents have not yet undertaken anywhere, and might never undertake in New York.