Chevron Corp. said Friday it will ask Ecuador's highest court to quash a judgment worth up to $18 billion dollars that was entered against the company last year.

The oil giant is fighting to avoid paying any of the judgment that was imposed for alleged oil pollution in the eastern part of the Andean country. Earlier this month, an intermediate appellate court upheld the trial court's ruling (Greenwire, Jan. 4).

The indigenous Ecuadorean plaintiffs and their American lawyers have been waging a legal battle since 1993, when they first filed suit against Texaco Petroleum Corp., which operated in Ecuador from the 1960s to the 1990s. Chevron later acquired Texaco.

The latest appeal is to the National Court of Justice.

Chevron is continuing with its legal battle in Ecuadorean courts despite having stated publicly that it believes the judgment was fraudulent. The company has been highly critical of the Ecuadorean legal system.

Chevron has made it clear it has more faith in two other avenues it is pursuing: a federal racketeering suit that it filed in the Southern District of New York, alleging that the entire case is a sham, and international arbitration proceedings between it and the Ecuadorean government, which is being heard in the Netherlands.

Click here to read E&E's special report on the case.