Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, asked a court in Ecuador to remove the judge presiding over a $27 billion environmental lawsuit against the company there, saying he is biased.

Echoing allegations it first made Aug. 31 about alleged judicial misconduct, Chevron claimed Judge Juan Nunez was involved in a bribery scheme to steer government contracts and disclosed his intention to rule against the company before the case was completed, according to a document Chevron said it filed yesterday in court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador.

The judge, president of the Nueva Loja Superior Court in Lago Agrio, 20 miles south of the Colombian border, was overseeing a lawsuit claiming Chevron was responsible for pollution from oil drilling in the Ecuadorean Amazon when the company released secret recordings it says show his bias and involvement in bribery. Nunez has denied the claims, Ecuadorean media reported.

Nunez “has betrayed the public trust and violated his solemn duty to judge impartially and independently,” Adolfo Callejas Ribadeneira, a Chevron lawyer, said in the filing.

Nunez stepped down from the case Sept. 4 and was reinstated Sept. 22 after another judge said his recusal was unfounded. Nunez couldn’t be reached yesterday for comment.

‘Real Issue’

“This is just another move to discredit the trial, and an attempt to shift the attention from the real issue: the company’s responsibility for the environmental, social and health problems they created in the Amazon,” Pablo Fajardo, an attorney for Ecuadoreans suing Chevron, said in a phone interview.

Chevron said Texaco Inc., which it acquired in 2001, cleaned up its share of the pollution at its former oil fields. Those fields were taken over by Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, PetroEcuador, almost two decades ago.

An agreement between Texaco and Ecuador released Chevron from any future liability, according to the San Ramon, California-based oil company.

The case has been pending in a court in Lago Agrio since 2003.

To contact the reporters on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net; Adriana Brasileiro in Quito at abrasileiro@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 29, 2009 00:01 EDT