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GREENPEACE MUST PAY AT LEAST $660M OVER DAKOTA PIPELINE PROTESTS,
SAYS JURY  
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Rachel Leingang and Nina Lakhani
March 19, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Non-profit, which will appeal decision, says lawsuits like this are
aimed at ‘destroying the right to peaceful protest’ _

'No Dakota Access Pipeline' protest in 2016., Photo: Rob Wilson

 

A jury in North Dakota
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the environmental group Greenpeace
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hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy
Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests
in the state nearly a decade ago.

Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth
almost $70bn, had sued Greenpeace
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defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the
Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017, claiming the organization
“incited” people to protest by using a “misinformation
campaign”.

Greenpeace, which had denied the claims, said in a statement after the
verdict that lawsuits like this were aimed at “destroying the right
to peaceful protest”; constitutional rights experts had expressed
fears that the case could have a wider chilling effect on free speech.

The nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota
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Energy Transfer on most counts after more than two days of
deliberations. It awarded Energy Transfer at least $660m, according to
calculations from Greenpeace.

The environmental group, which had expressed concerns before the trial
about getting a fair hearing in oil and gas country, said that a loss
and an enormous financial award could bankrupt their US operation.
Energy Transfer sued three Greenpeace entities, claiming that they are
a single organization rather than independent members of the
Greenpeace network.

Greenpeace will appeal the decision, the organization said.

The case has been closely watched by the wider non-profit community
and first amendment experts amid concerns
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how it could affect activism.

“What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant
disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while
they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the
protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to
non-violence in every action we take,” said Deepa Padmanabha,
Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser.

“We should all be concerned about the future of the first amendment,
and lawsuits like these aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful
protest and free speech. Greenpeace will continue to do its part to
fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for everyone,”
Padmanabha said.

Greenpeace International was one of the three entities sued by Energy
Transfer. Its general counsel, Kristin Casper, said the
organization’s fight would continue: “Energy Transfer hasn’t
heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with
our anti-Slapp [strategic lawsuits against public participation]
lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and
peaceful protest. We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in
the Netherlands. We will not back down, we will not be silenced.”

Energy Transfer thanked the judge and jury in a statement, saying:
“While we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held accountable for
their actions against us, this win is really for the people of Mandan
and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily
harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded
and trained by Greenpeace. It is also a win for all law-abiding
Americans who understand the difference between the right to free
speech and breaking the law. That the disrupters have been held
responsible is a win for all of us.”

Trey Cox, Energy Transfer’s counsel for the case, said the jury’s
verdict was “resounding” and showed Greenpeace’s actions had
been unlawful. “It is also a day of celebration for the
constitution, the state of North Dakota and Energy Transfer,” he
said.

During jury selection, potential jurors appeared to largely dislike
the protests, and many had ties to the fossil fuel industry
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In the end, more than half the jurors selected to hear the case had
ties to the fossil fuel industry, and most had negative views of
anti-pipeline protests or groups that oppose the use of fossil fuels.

“Today’s verdict is not a reflection of wrongdoing on
Greenpeace’s part, but rather the result of a long list of courtroom
tactics and propaganda tricks that Energy Transfer used to deny
Greenpeace its right to a fair trial,” said Kirk Herbertson, a New
York attorney and the US director for advocacy and campaigns for
EarthRights International. “We hope that the North Dakota supreme
court will question why this case ever made it to trial in the first
place.”

Concerns over finding an unbiased jury plagued the case even before it
began, given the rightward political leanings of Mandan, North Dakota,
and the distaste for the protests among local residents. Mysterious
rightwing mailers, made to look like a newspaper called “Central ND
News”, that contained articles slanted against the pipeline protest
or in favor of Energy Transfer were also sent to residents in recent
months, which Greenpeace alleged could taint the jury pool.

Greenpeace sought to move the trial to another venue in North Dakota
multiple times, but was shot down by the county court and the North
Dakota supreme court. The judge, James Gion, who was brought in to
preside over the case after all Morton county judges recused
themselves, denied requests for livestreaming, which the state supreme
court also denied.

Legal sources have said
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case is a classic example of a Slapp – a form of civil litigation
increasingly deployed by corporations, politicians and wealthy
individuals to deliberately wear down and silence critics including
journalists, activists and watchdog groups. These cases, even when the
entities suing lose, cause significant legal costs for defendants and
can have a chilling effect.

The five-week trial saw Energy Transfer attempt to tie a host of
misdeeds or disruptions caused by the protests to Greenpeace, which
has maintained that its involvement was small and at the request of
the Standing Rock Tribe.

Standing Rock released a statement
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the trial began affirming it had led the protests and claiming the
tribe had had ongoing issues with getting safety information from
Energy Transfer. The pipeline company was “frivolously alleging
defamation and seeking money damages, designed to shut down all voice
supporting Standing Rock. The case is an attempt to silence our Tribe
about the truth of what happened at Standing Rock, and the threat
posed by DAPL to our land, our water and our people. The Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe will not be silenced,” the tribal chairperson, Janet
Alkire, wrote.

In the final days of the case, Kelcy Warren, Energy Transfer’s
billionaire founder and a major donor to Donald Trump
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deposition that his company had offered financial incentives –
including money, a luxury ranch and a new school – to the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe to stop the protests, which the tribe
declined, according to
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group of monitors attending the trial because of concerns over its
fairness. Warren said he believed the tribe refused the offer because
it was offered more by Earthjustice, which has served as a legal
representative of the tribe.

The trial-monitoring committee released a statement after the verdict
saying that the trial had been “deeply flawed” and denied
Greenpeace the ability to present a full defense. The committee
monitored every part of the trial and concluded the jury had been
biased in favor of Energy Transfer and the judge lacked full legal
knowledge of the complex issues at hand.

Marty Garbus, a longtime first amendment lawyer who is part of the
monitoring group, said: “In my six decades of legal practice, I have
never witnessed a trial as unfair as the one against Greenpeace that
just ended in the courts of North Dakota … Greenpeace has a very
strong case on appeal. I believe there is a good chance it ultimately
will win both in court and in the court of public opinion.”

The trial came after Energy Transfer first filed a Rico lawsuit in
federal court in 2017. The federal racketeering case was dismissed on
14 February 2019, but seven days later Energy Transfer refiled a
virtually identical suit in North Dakota state court.

* Dakota Access Pipeline
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* Greenpeace
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* Free Speech
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* big oil
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