Chevron says Dutch Supreme Court rejects Ecuador's $9.5 billion claim

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court of the Netherlands dismissed Ecuador's attempts to annul decisions of an international arbitral tribunal that ordered Ecuador to prevent enforcement of a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corp anywhere in the world, the U.S. oil major said on Tuesday.

Chevron said the Dutch court's decision upholds rulings of two Dutch lower courts which rejected Ecuador's attempts to annul those awards.

"The Dutch supreme court found that the challenged arbitral awards are consistent with public policy and justified to prevent irreversible harm to Chevron," the company said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada had dismissed claims attempting to force Chevron's Canadian unit to pay the $9.5 billion judgment handed down in Ecuador against the company over pollution in the Andean country.

Residents of Ecuador's Lago Agrio region have been trying to force Chevron to pay for water and soil contamination caused from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.

The villagers obtained a judgment against Chevron in Ecuador in 2011.

The latest decision adds to several court victories that Chevron has won against the plaintiffs and its legal team in this case.

(Reporting by Philip George and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)