Oil giant Chevron Corp. today failed -- at least for now -- in it latest effort to combat a multibillion-dollar judgment entered against it by an Ecuadorean court.

A federal judge in the Southern District of New York rejected the company's motion seeking attachment of the assets of the Ecuadorean indigenous plaintiffs and their American lawyers in the long-running and highly contentious litigation.

Chevron's request was aimed at stopping the plaintiffs from enforcing the February 2011 judgment in Ecuador, which could be worth up to $18 billion. Chevron claims the judgment is fraudulent and has filed a racketeering lawsuit against the plaintiffs' legal team.

The Ecuadorean judge found Chevron liable for oil contamination caused by Texaco Petroleum Co. when it operated in the Andean nation from the 1960s to the 1990s. Chevron later acquired Texaco.

Earlier this week, an Ecuadorean appeals court upheld the judgment (Greenwire, Jan. 4).

In November, Chevron requested a "prejudgment attachment" of the plaintiffs' assets in the racketeering case, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (known as RICO) (Greenwire, Nov. 30, 2011).

If successful, the gambit would have prevented the plaintiffs from, among other things, seeking additional funding by selling off stakes in the judgment.

In today's opinion, Judge Lewis Kaplan said Chevron had "made no effort to quantify the damages it allegedly has sustained to date."

The Ecuadorean judgment alone "is not a measure of any damages" Chevron has suffered, Kaplan added.

But he said Chevron could renew its application at a later date.

The plaintiffs welcomed the decision, with spokeswoman Karen Hinton saying it was "another rebuke for Chevron," coming so soon after the "devastating defeat in the appellate court of Ecuador."

Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson said Kaplan had "left the door open to a future attachment filing" and "did not question the strength of Chevron's fraud evidence."

Click here to read the E&E special report on the litigation.