(Bloomberg) -- Lloyd’s of London haskept its lawsuit against New Dominion LLCover fracking out of the state where the ground is shaking.

A federal judge in New York agreed Wednesday to decide thelawsuit by Lloyd’s seeking to be released from liability forearthquake damage in Oklahoma blamed on fracking.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said a clause inthe Lloyd’s insurance policies requires disputes to be resolved inNew York.

Do pollution insurance policies cover earthquakes?

New Dominion had hoped to litigate the insurance question in itshome state of Oklahoma, where it sued in June to try to forceLloyd’s to provide coverage for earthquake claims.

The decision comes as Oklahoma drillers are being ordered toshut more fracking wastewater wells and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) upgraded anearthquake last weekend to 5.8 in magnitude, a record for thestate.

The Environmental ProtectionAgency said Wednesday it has ordered the closure of 17additional disposal sites under its jurisdiction in Osage County inOklahoma. The move follows the suspension of 37 wells by theOklahoma Corporation Commission.

Oklahoma regulators had already been limiting the disposal ofoilfield wastewater, which scientists have linked to seismicactivity, before the tremor that was felt from Texas to Illinois onSaturday. The number of earthquakes measuring 3.0 or higher reachedat least 890 last year, up from just two in 2008, before thestate’s fracking boom started. The USGS hasn’t determined anofficial cause for the earthquake.

Arguments in the Lloyd’s case focus on whether pollutioninsurance policies it sold to the oil company in 2014 coverearthquakes. This year, New Dominion was hit with five lawsuitsseeking compensation for damage caused by earthquakes in Oklahoma.The suits blamed the earthquakes on the company’s injection welloperations.

Injected chemicals

Lloyd’s declined to pay for the damages, saying its insurance onlycovered the company for injuries caused by pollutants and that thewater and chemicals injected into the wells as part of the frackingprocess didn’t qualify as pollution under the policy.

Andrew Jayne, a lawyer for New Dominion, didn’t immediatelyrespond to phone and email messages after regular business hoursseeking comment on the ruling.

Cote’s decision Wednesday addressed only where the disputeshould be decided. It didn’t consider the underlying arguments overwhether earthquakes were covered by the insurance.

The case is Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s LondonSubscribing to Policy Number PGIARK03959 v. New Dominion LLC,16-cv-05005, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York(Manhattan).

Related: Fracking and earthquakes: What'scovered?

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