Brazil’s top appeals court has upheld an order for Chevron Corp. and driller Transocean Ltd. to suspend their petroleum drilling and transportation operations in the country pending an investigation into two oil spills.
Last month, a Rio de Janeiro court ordered the suspension and said the two companies would be fined about $244 million for each day they failed to comply with it, but Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency later appealed.
Wednesday’s decision by a judge at the Superior Court of Justice to uphold the suspension is the latest chapter in legal wrangling that has followed the November 2011 and March leaks at a Chevron well off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Some 155,000 gallons of crude were thought to have been released in the November spill.
