One of the world’s best-known green groups is duking it out against a Texas energy company in a multi-pronged legal drama that has legal nerds, environmentalists and other companies watching closely.
Both sides insist that the nearly decadelong court fight between Greenpeace and Energy Transfer is nowhere near over. The final outcome of the high-profile case — perhaps still years away — could have far-reaching legal implications in the United States and abroad for environmentalists and other activists.
“The way this thing keeps spinning out is utterly fascinating,” said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law School.
For Greenpeace USA, the legal spat surrounding its role in 2016 and 2017 protests over the Dakota Access oil pipeline has become a fight for its life. Energy Transfer and its supporters accuse the green group of advancing an “extremist agenda” that went far outside the bounds of its legal right to protest.
The sprawling and complicated battle could drag on for a while, with possible stops ahead in the North Dakota Supreme Court or even the U.S. Supreme Court. On a parallel track, a countersuit filed by Greenpeace International in the Netherlands poses the first-of-its-kind test of European rules aimed at protecting free speech.
Greenpeace USA has said Energy Transfer’s lawsuit is a strategic effort to silence dissent and that the green group could potentially go bankrupt if the penalties against it remain severe. As of now, the environmental group faces a judgment of almost $350 million.
Experts see the skirmish as much bigger than the parties involved.
“I think it’s very important, not just for Greenpeace but for other organizations who are looking at this lawsuit, that this kind of abusive tactic is not successful,” said Marco Simons, Greenpeace USA’s interim general counsel. “We’re going to continue fighting it as long as necessary.”
Energy industry advocates hope the lawsuit will send a message to environmental activists.
Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, has been keeping tabs on the dispute dating back to the “mischief” Greenpeace “created and caused during the Dakota Access pipeline protests,” he said.
“The left seems to think that the ends justify the means, that they’re righteous in their causes,” Pyle said. “But people’s lives were impacted. People got hurt. We were very pleased that Energy Transfer took a stand here.”
The backstory
The legal feud dates back to 2017, when Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International and other organizations the company dubbed “eco-terrorists.” The complaint in North Dakota federal court accused the groups of racketeering, inciting violence and “malicious interference” with construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Thousands of people participated in the 2016 and 2017 protests, supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s objections that a pipeline near its reservation threatened its water supplies.
A federal judge tossed the allegations that the environmental groups had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law enacted to strengthen penalties for organized crime.
Greenpeace celebrated, but Energy Transfer wasn’t done.
The oil company sued the green group in a North Dakota state court in 2019, alleging that Greenpeace had made false statements about the project and had organized and supported protesters’ trespassing, property destruction and violence.
Greenpeace has said there’s “no evidence” to support Energy Transfer’s claims and that the energy company is attempting to “rewrite the history of the Indigenous-led resistance at Standing Rock and Greenpeace’s role.”
A nine-person jury in North Dakota ordered Greenpeace early this year to pay a whopping sum topping $660 million in damages.
“There are consequences for breaking the laws of the United States of America, and we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held responsible for its actions against us related to their conduct during the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline,” an Energy Transfer spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. “This is also a win for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”
The judge overseeing the case slashed that amount to about $345 million in an October order. Greenpeace declared the reduction a “partial victory” but expects to appeal if that order reflects the court’s final judgment, which hasn’t yet been issued.
‘This is not over’
On top of the behemoth sum Greenpeace could owe, the green group, its allies and legal experts say the outcome could have significant impacts on free speech.
“For cases like this, it’s never about the money — it’s really about an attempt to silence organizations and individuals who are choosing to either shed light on corporate practices or to advance citizens’ concerns,” said Sushma Raman, Greenpeace’s interim executive director.
“This is not over. We don’t even have the final judgment yet,” she said of the North Dakota court. “We have many steps ahead of us in this battle.”
What makes this case stand out “is both the aggressiveness and persistence of the company and the magnitude of the damages claimed,” said Nikki Reisch, director of the climate and energy program at the Center for International Environmental Law.
Reisch sees this as an unfortunate “broader trend, certainly in the United States and around the world, in an escalation of aggressive misuse of the legal system” that includes harassment and intimidation tactics pursued by public and private actors alike.
Pyle of the American Energy Alliance said he hopes the legal outcome will be a “calming effect within the green community, especially the ones that are more strident in their activities.” The lengthy and high-profile litigation “certainly puts them on notice that companies are going to start calling them out on these things,” he said.
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, said the Greenpeace jury verdict is already shaping how his organization makes decisions.
When deciding whether to endorse recent “No Kings” protests around the country, Suckling said his group considered whether it was giving training to the public on how to behave in a way that could cause someone to claim that it was in charge or telling people what to do. “We didn’t do that and we wouldn’t do that because of this Greenpeace verdict,” he said.
“The stakes are higher” for activist groups in light of the Greenpeace verdict, Suckling said.
“I see no evidence they committed illegal activity. What we want to avoid is the messy confusion that Greenpeace got into, which would allow a corporation to make false claims and drag them into a jury trial where everything becomes uncertain.”
Heading to Dutch court
In a separate but related legal showdown, Greenpeace International has filed a countersuit in the Netherlands in what it calls a “landmark test” of the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP law. That European directive aims to limit so-called Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits. Proponents of anti-SLAPP laws say those kinds of complaints are used by corporations or individuals to drain resources from their critics by tying them up in court.
Energy Transfer had asked the North Dakota judge overseeing the case in that state to issue an injunction blocking Greenpeace International from proceeding with its lawsuit in the Dutch court, but North Dakota Judge James Gion in September rejected the request.
Energy Transfer has accused Greenpeace of using the case in the Netherlands to “undo a local jury verdict and saddle Energy Transfer with damages of its own.” The energy company asked the North Dakota Supreme Court to direct the district court to block Greenpeace from pursuing its Netherlands action.
Parenteau of Vermont Law School said he thinks it’s possible that an appeal of the North Dakota verdict could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. “I don’t think the court will take it,” he added. “But with this court, you just don’t know.” He expects that the final tally owed by Greenpeace is “going to be monumental.”
It’s part of a new era, Parenteau said. “Companies are much more willing to sue and to pillory and to go after organizations than they ever have been” during his decades working in environmental law, he said.
President Donald Trump is “emboldening them. Congress is emboldening them,” Parenteau said, “to really go after liberal environmental organizations with everything they can muster.”
