An Ecuadorian court ordered on Sunday oil and gas giant Chevron to pay $19 billion fine for polluting the Amazon province of Sucumbios. Court Attorney Juan Pablo Saenz warned Chevron of oil embargoes if Chevron would not comply with the court fine.

The lawsuit was the result of a complaint of unchecked pollution from Texaco which Chevron bought in 2001. Indigenous groups and Ecuadorian farmers claimed Texaco contaminated large parts of the Amazon jungle from 1964 to 1990.

The lawsuit run for several years until an Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron and slapped the company an $18 billion fine which the Ecuadorian Supreme Court upheld in March 2012. Chevron appealed the decision, which caused the court to add another $1 billion to the original penalty.

Chevron insisted the ruling was a result of bribery and fraud, and added the decision is not enforceable since the oil firm has no assets that could be seized in Ecuador. However, the complainants also filed similar lawsuits in Canada and Brazil in a bid to run after Chevron's assets in third countries.

In Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who once tried to stop the collection of the $18-billion fine, said that despite the question of tainted decision by the Ecuadorian courts, it is too soon to conclude that the judgment cannot be enforced in New York.

A spokeswoman of the Ecuadorian plaintiffs saw victory in Mr Kaplan's separate ruling in Saturday by his admission that fraud wasn't proven in the decision and it could be enforced.

"The rainforest communities in Ecuador who have fought to hold Chevron accountable will continue to take all necessary and proper legal measures to seize Chevron assets to ensure that their legal rights are vindicated and that Chevron complies with its legal obligations," The Wall Street Journal quoted Karen Hinton, the group's spokesperson.

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