Greenpeace has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over its protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota, a decision that the environmental campaign group said could bankrupt its US operations.
A nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota, ruled in favour of Texas-based pipeline operator, Energy Transfer, on Wednesday, finding Greenpeace and its US entities responsible for defamation, conspiracy, and physical damage to its Dakota Access Pipeline.
The eight-year legal battle has been closely watched as a test of US free speech laws. Environmental and civil rights lawyers said the verdict was a setback for free speech under US President Donald Trump, who has championed the oil and gas sector and targeted political opponents and the media.
The lawsuit stemmed from Greenpeace’s participation in protests against the construction of the pipeline in 2016, which drew more than 100,000 protesters and transformed the sleepy city of Mandan into a battleground over indigenous rights and environmental protections.
In 2017, Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace and its US entities in federal court, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. After the case was dismissed, it filed a similar lawsuit in a North Dakota state court, where a verdict was delivered on Wednesday after a three-week trial.
The ruling follows a renewed push from the fossil fuel industry to use the legal system to advance projects and silence opposition. Since 2017, nearly two dozen states have moved to criminalise protests near pipelines, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.
Greenpeace said the ruling in North Dakota would cost the organisation more than $660mn in damages. The organisation said it would appeal against the ruling and has also sued Energy Transfer in the Netherlands in a test of new EU freedom of speech rules.
“The fight against Big Oil isn’t over today, and we know that the truth and the law are on our side,” said Kristin Casper, general counsel for Greenpeace.
The $3.8bn Dakota Access Pipeline was first proposed in 2014 to transport crude from North Dakota’s prolific Bakken basin to Illinois. Tensions began in 2016 when members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe set up camps protesting against the project, fearing it endangered their drinking water and violated their sovereignty.
The company, whose billionaire co-founder Kelcy Warren is a prominent Trump donor, argued Greenpeace was instrumental to the protests, responsible for spreading misinformation, training thousands of protesters, donating money and supplies.
A combination of delays, security measures in response to the protests, and reputational and physical damage had cost the company millions of dollars, it argued.
Energy Transfer on Wednesday said it was “pleased” with the verdict, calling the outcome a “win” for North Dakota and for “all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law”.
Greenpeace and civil rights lawyers had called the Energy Transfer claim a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” or Slapp, a term describing legal actions filed by powerful entities to silence critics and exhaust their resources.
Greenpeace had petitioned unsuccessfully to change the venue of the North Dakota proceedings, arguing it was impossible to get a fair trial in the county where the protests occurred and where many residents have ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Mandan, where the courthouse is located, is home to North Dakota’s largest refinery, and Energy Transfer donated $3mn in 2019 to upgrade a local library and parks.
“This was the engineered victory Energy Transfer sought and they got it,” said Scott Badenoch, a visiting attorney at the Environmental Law Institute. “The depth of chilling that this verdict will yield is hard to understate.”
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