A North Dakota judge finalized a potentially fatal verdict against Greenpeace on Friday, affirming a $345 million jury award against the storied environmental group that Greenpeace has said may force it into bankruptcy in the United States.
The verdict was reached last year after a bruising trial brought by the pipeline company Energy Transfer over Greenpeace’s role in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an 1,172-mile pipeline that carries oil from North Dakota to Illinois.
Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace had played a major role in the protests a decade ago, forcing construction delays and costing the company money. Greenpeace has said that the lawsuit, which was argued last year in state court in Mandan, N.D., was baseless and designed to silence it, and that the verdict undermined free-speech rights in the United States.
“Speaking out against corporations that cause environmental harm should never be deemed unlawful,” said Marco Simons, interim general counsel at Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Fund. “This is a setback, but the movement to defend people and the planet has always faced setbacks and resistance, and Energy Transfer will fail in its goal of silencing its critics.”
Greenpeace said it would seek a new trial and, if necessary, file an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court.
Energy Transfer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The judge in the case, James Gion, had previously cut the jury award nearly in half, from roughly $670 million to about $345 million, split among three different Greenpeace entities.
On Tuesday, Judge Gion noted in court filings that the Greenpeace groups — two based in the United States and one in the Netherlands — had asked him to overturn or at least further reduce the verdict, which was much larger than expected. But he said he did not find reason to do so.
Judge Gion wrote that the jury had heard evidence from both sides about the claims, which included defamation, conspiracy, trespass and interference with business operations. The lawyers for Energy Transfer had argued that Greenpeace played a key role in galvanizing the raucous protests, which drew tens of thousands of people to a remote area near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016 and 2017.
Greenpeace countered that it had played only a supporting role in nonviolent protests led by Native American groups. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe maintains that the pipeline is a danger to its sole source of drinking water.
“The jury heard that evidence and made their decision,” Judge Gion wrote. He added that the jury “must have found the evidence presented by the plaintiffs to be more credible.”
Greenpeace has said the verdict was a threat to First Amendment rights. The group called the suit, first filed in federal court in 2017, a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” or a SLAPP suit. That’s a term for complaints filed by powerful individuals or organizations aimed at shutting down critics by raising the risk of long, expensive court battles. Many states have anti-SLAPP laws that make it difficult to pursue such cases, though not North Dakota.
Martin Garbus, a veteran free-speech lawyer who was among pro-Greenpeace legal observers who attended the trial, said he feared the North Dakota case would eventually make its way to the Supreme Court, where he predicted Greenpeace would lose. The justices “will use the case to murder the First Amendment,” he said.
Many European countries also have anti-SLAPP statutes. That has allowed Greenpeace International (which is based in the Netherlands, and is one of the three Greenpeace organizations that are defendants in the case) to bring a countersuit against Energy Transfer in an Amsterdam court.
Greenpeace International has maintained that its only involvement in the pipeline protests was signing a letter to banks expressing its opposition, a document that was signed by hundreds of groups and that had been drafted by a Dutch organization. The Dutch case is expected to be an early test of a new European Union directive that sets out stringent goals for reining in SLAPP-style lawsuits.
Energy Transfer has asked the North Dakota Supreme Court to issue an injunction to block the Dutch suit. That’s an extraordinary request, as it would be a state-level court in the United States taking action to block a court case in another country, being conducted under that nation’s laws. The cases remain pending in both courts.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s fight to stop the pipeline, which has been operating since 2017, continues at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
In December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a long-awaited environmental review, a critical step for the pipeline to receive full permits, which may weaken the tribe’s arguments. Lawyers for the tribe said the report minimized spill risks and failed to honor treaty rights.
The Army Corps said in a statement that it had incorporated input from tribes, federal and state agencies and the public, and it declined to comment on the pending litigation. The report is expected to be finalized soon.
Karen Zraick covers legal affairs for the Climate desk and the courtroom clashes playing out over climate and environmental policy.
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