In a win for the oil and gas pipeline company Energy Transfer, a nine-person North Dakota jury found the environmental group Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages and defamation for the 2016 to 2017 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In their lawsuit, Dallas-based Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace was responsible for defamation, disruption and property damage for the protests that captured national attention in 2016. Greenpeace claimed the lawsuit threatened its freedom of speech.
In a statement, Energy Transfer said, “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.”
Greenpeace plans to appeal the verdict. “This is the end of a chapter, but not the end of our fight. Energy Transfer knows we don’t have $660 million. They want our silence, not our money.” Sushma Raman, interim executive director of Greenpeace Inc., told CBS News.
Greenpeace accused Energy Transfer of filing a “SLAPP” lawsuit, short for strategic lawsuits against public participation. SLAPP lawsuits have been criticized as being a method of curtailing free speech and assembly by individuals, organizations or press by threatening lengthy and expensive legal proceedings in court. 35 states have anti-SLAPP laws aimed at preventing these types of lawsuits. North Dakota is not among them.
Energy Transfer previously filed a federal RICO lawsuit against Greenpeace seeking $300 million in damages in 2017, but that case was dismissed by a federal judge. Energy Transfer then filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in North Dakota state court shortly after. Energy Transfer is valued at over $60 billion and reported $82 billion in revenue in 2024.
“The verdict against Greenpeace not only represents an assault on free speech and protest rights,” said Rebecca Brown, president and CEO of the Center for International and Environmental Law, in a statement. “This case is a textbook example of corporate weaponization of the legal system to silence protest and intimidate communities. This misuse of the legal system stifles legitimate dissent and must be seen as a direct threat to environmental justice and democratic freedoms.”
In the weeks and months preceding the trial, Greenpeace raised the alarm that the damages sought by Energy Transfer, thought at the time to be in the $300 million range, would be catastrophic to the group, claiming that would amount to 10 times the group’s annual U.S. operating budget.
The damages ultimately awarded total roughly $667 million and will be split up among several arms of Greenpeace. Greenpeace USA is on the hook for about $404 million, while Greenpeace Fund Inc. and Greenpeace International must ach pay some $131 million, according to The Associated Press.
The trial took place in Morton County, near the protest site. Greenpeace had requested a change in venue for the trial but was denied.
The 1,172-mile pipeline crosses four states and has been operating since late 2017 despite the controversy and the protest, which stemmed from a pipeline crossing under Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe called the pipeline a violation of its treaty rights and claimed the pipeline route risked polluting the tribe’s primary water source and would damage sacred sites.
The protests at Standing Rock drew thousands of people from around the country who camped outside the pipeline’s construction site. Celebrities and prominent figures including now-Trump cabinet members Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also visited the camp.
Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
But violence erupted between police, security guards and protestors several times, culminating in tear gas and water canons being used against protestors. The camps were cleared in February of 2017. More than 140 people were arrested at the Standing Rock protests.
One of the organizers of the protests was Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney for the Lakota People’s Law Project, who was arrested during the demonstrations and charged with felony inciting a riot. Iron Eyes questioned Greenpeace’s liability for the protests.
“I never met a single Greenpeace person, a representative, or ever went to a training or anything like that,” Iron Eyes told CBS News.
Instead, Iron Eyes found the ruling to delegitimize the concerns and agency of Native Americans who chose to protest at Standing Rock. “To hold them solely responsible for our fight, this is a tribal nation fight,” he said. “I think it’s disrespectful to tribal nations, to the Sioux Nation in particular, it was our nation, and our people who stood up.”
