The North Dakota ju-described ordered Greenpeace to pay more $660 million If it damages energy transfer, the company behind it Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer He sued Greenpeace in 2019claims it organized a vast conspiracy against the company by organizing a historic protest over the booking of Standing Rocksoo. 2016 and 2017.
Energy Transfer Partners have denounced three Greenpeace entities (two in the US and three Amsterdam-based Greenpeace entities) for violating North Dakota’s trespassing and honor and loss laws, and for coordinating the protest coordination aimed at a 1,172-mile pipeline to stop oil transport from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field to Illinois terminals. Greenpeace argued that it played only a small supportive role in Indigenous-led movements.
“This was clearly a test case intended to scare others away from exercising their first amendment to free speech and peaceful protest,” said Deepa Padmanava, senior legal counsel at Greenpeace USA. “They are trying to buy silence. That silence is not on sale.”
Legal and Indigenous experts said the case is an example of a colloquially known “strategic litigation against public participation,” a tactic used by businesses and wealthy individuals to own critics at legal costs. They also criticized energy transfer for using lawsuits to undermine tribal treaty rights by exaggerating the role of out-of-state agitators.
Three Greenpeace entities named in the lawsuit – Greenpeace Inc., a US-based advocacy division; Greenpeace Funds raises funds and is based in the US. Netherlands-based Greenpeace International is planning next moves, including a lawsuit to the North Dakota Supreme Court and another European Union counter-law.
Greenpeace filed as part of an earlier appeal to move the trial to a more equitable court. 33 pages of documentation The ju apprentice in Morton County, North Dakota, (the trial occurred) explained to the state Supreme Court that it is likely biased against the defendants as they were drawn from the same area where prevention protests erupted and disrupted daily life.
The request included the results of a 2022 survey of 150 potential jurors in Morton County conducted by the National Ju Court Project, a litigation consulting firm. Greenpeace also noted that nine of the 20 final ju umpires have either protests and “direct personal experiences” or have either friends or family with direct personal experiences.
Stephanie Keith/Green Peace
Pat Derprue, professor emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School, said the North Dakota Supreme Court could overturn a lower court’s decision was “probably less than 50%.” What he said was that the Supreme Court would reduce the “outrageous” amounts claimed by Morton County ju apprentices, including various penalties that doubled the $300 million damages that Energy Transfer had originally alleged.
“The courts have a lot of discretion in reducing the amount of damages,” he said. He said the Morton County verdict “beyond punishment. This is a burnt earth, and what we see here.”
Depending on what happens in the North Dakota Supreme Court, Derprue also said there is a basis for sue the case in the U.S. Supreme Court based on the relevant First Amendment Free Speech issue. But he said the move could be a “really dangerous proposal,” along with the conservative vast majority of courts and precedents that such cases can be set. The federal government’s decision to support energy transfer could limit the ability of organizations to protest not only around the pipeline, but also across the country.
Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International coordinates 24 independent Greenpeace chapters around the world, legally separate from them, but is fighting back. In February, he refuted Dutch energy partners and used the EU’s new anti-slap directive. It was implemented in May 2024.
Greenpeace International is only on the hook for just a portion of the $600 million or more billed against three Greenpeace agencies by Morton County ju apprentices. Countersuits in the EU do not change what happened in US courts. Instead, it seeks to recover the costs incurred by the Amsterdam-based branch during its long-standing battle with the Morton County case and the previous federal incident in 2017. It was ultimately rejected.
The Greenpeace International trial began in July in a Dutch courthouse and is the first test of the EU’s anti-slap directive. According to Christen Casper, the general counsel of Greenpeace International, the EU branch has a strong case. This was described as a clear case of protected public participation, as the only lawsuit in favour of the pipeline protest was to sign an open letter. Eric Heinze, a free speech expert at Queen Mary University in London and a professor of law and humanities, said the incident appears to be “black and white.”
“Usually, I don’t want to predict,” he said.
While various Greenpeace entities may have to pay damages as ordered by US courts, as a result of the EU case, Casper said they will send an international message against “bullying and weaponizing corporate legal.” Padmanava said the organization will not disappear anytime soon, regardless of the damage caused by Greenpeace USA. “We can’t make the movement go bankrupt,” she said. “What we’re working on, our campaigns and our commitments — that doesn’t change.”
In response to a request for comment, Energy Transfer said that the Morton County Ju Court decision was a victory for the people of Mandan and for all law-abiding Americans who understand their right to free speech and the right to break the law. Greenpeace is a victory for all of us.”
Nick Estes, an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, is a member of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe who wrote a book about the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, and said the incident is more than punishing Greenpeace. He said it could happen “if you go outside the path of what you consider an acceptable form of protest.”
“They had to avoid the actual context of the entire movement, surrounding treaty rights, land rights, water rights, and tribal sovereignty. “They had to go on a detour route and find a sympathetic court to attack the environmental movement.”
Janet Alchia, a chair of the Standing Rocksio tribe, is Statement of March 3rd The Morton County case was “designed to shut down all the voices that support Standing Rock, claiming defamation and robbing money.” She said the company also used propaganda to distrust the tribe during and after the protests.
“Part of the attack on our tribes is attacking our allies,” Alkaia writes. “The Standing Rock Sioux tribes will not be silent.”
This story has been updated.
