Members of the indigenous Achuar tribe from the Peruvian Amazon have won an undisclosed sum from Occidental Petroleum in an out-of-court settlement after a long-running legal battle in the US courts. They sued the company in 2007, alleging it knowingly caused pollution which caused premature deaths, birth defects and damaged their habitat. It is the first time a company from the United States has been sued in a US court for pollution it caused in another country, Marco Simons, the legal director of EarthRights International, which represented the Achuar people in the lawsuit, said. It set a “precedent” which he said will be “significant for future cases and has already been cited by other courts in the United States”… The funds provided by the company through a trust will be used for health, education and nutrition projects run by a collective of five Achuar communities…that filed the lawsuit…[Also refers to Pluspetrol]