A North Dakota judge is expected to soon finalize a costly judgment against Greenpeace in the environmentalists’ closely watched court battle against a pipeline company.
District Court Judge James Gion issued a procedural opinion Tuesday that paves the way for a final judgment in the yearslong court fight stemming from protests over Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. A final judgment will trigger appeals expected from both sides in the legal drama.
Gion’s final judgment is expected to determine that Greenpeace owes hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for its role supporting protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. Gion last fall found that Greenpeace owed a total of about $345 million in damages. That figure slashed a jury’s findings earlier last year that the green group owed $667 million in damages.
But neither Greenpeace nor Energy Transfer was satisfied with the $345 million price tag, and both sides are expected to contest the judge’s final ruling once it’s issued.
