Controversy

Greenpeace is on trial. Here's why the case is getting so much attention

By Anna Phillips The Washington Post

Published Feb. 25, 2025

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A $300 million lawsuit a pipeline company brought against Greenpeace in North Dakota has become a flash point in the debate over free speech, with environmentalists warning the outcome could threaten future advocacy.

The defamation case, which was first filed in federal court in 2017 and is set to go to trial Monday, centers on the fight over the Dakota Access pipeline nearly a decade ago near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It accuses Greenpeace of inciting the protests and encouraging violence to damage the profits and reputation of Dallas-based Energy Transfer, the operator of the 1,100-mile pipeline that carries oil from the Bakken fields in western North Dakota to Illinois.

Environmentalists see the case differently.

Greenpeace has said it played little role in the protests. Many environmentalists are convinced the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic, intended to instill fear throughout the broader movement. Activists say that they are being increasingly targeted by what's known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. Critics of these cases have traditionally defined them as meritless defamation lawsuits brought by major companies to silence critics and force them into years of expensive litigation.

"The fact that it's going forward is extremely alarming," said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental law firm Earthjustice. "The idea that Greenpeace's light participation in the protests caused anything close to the kind of damages that Energy Transfer Partners is looking to recover is just not plausible."

Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer, said the case is not about free speech.

"Our lawsuit against Greenpeace is about them not following the law," Granado said. "We support the rights of all Americans to express their opinions and lawfully protest. However, when it is not done in accordance with our laws, we have a legal system to deal with that."

If Energy Transfer wins, experts said it could bankrupt Greenpeace and embolden other fossil fuel companies file similar lawsuits.

"If Energy Transfer Partners is able to win a large judgment against Greenpeace, it would not only be devastating to Greenpeace, but it would inspire other companies to take more actions against their opponents," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "It could have a real chilling effect."

The protests at the heart of the lawsuit began in 2016, after the Dakota Access pipeline was approved. The Standing Rock and other Sioux tribes said they feared the pipeline, which runs below a reservoir on the Missouri River, would leak oil and pollute their drinking water. Over an eight-month period, thousands of protesters took up the tribes' cause, traveling to a protest camp in a remote prairie spot near the Cannonball and Missouri rivers.

The pipeline received federal approval in 2017 and began operating, but it is the subject of ongoing litigation.

Energy Transfer initially filed the case as a racketeering suit in federal court, alleging Greenpeace had trained protesters to disrupt the pipeline's construction and raised money by making false claims about the company. After a judge dismissed the case, writing that it fell "far short" of the evidence needed to establish a criminal conspiracy, Energy Transfer filed the defamation suit in state court in 2019.

The company's case now hinges on nine statements Greenpeace made that accused Energy Transfer of using aggressive tactics against protesters and desecrating burial grounds. The company has said these statements were not only false, but also were part of a "vast, malicious publicity campaign" against the company that damaged its relationship with the banks funding the pipeline.

Greenpeace said the suit has forced it to spend millions of dollars defending itself in a case that dramatically overstates its involvement in the protests.

Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA, said the group helped buy supplies to winterize the protest camp and supported a group of Indigenous trainers traveling to Standing Rock to teach principles of nonviolent action. The statements it is being sued over were not unique to Greenpeace, she said; some were written or echoed by other advocacy groups.

"There was no Greenpeace campaign and that was very intentional, because this was an Indigenous-led resistance," Padmanabha said.

This month, the group tried a new tactic. Greenpeace International, which is based in Amsterdam, filed an anti-intimidation case against Energy Transfer using a new European Union directive aimed at countering SLAPP lawsuits. The organization asked a Dutch court to declare the U.S. proceedings as stifling public participation and force Energy Transfer to pay damages.

There is no federal anti-SLAPP legislation in the United States, though bills to create new restrictions have been introduced in Congress, including one last December. More than 30 states have protections against these kinds of lawsuits, but North Dakota is not one of them.

The case is being tried in Morton County, where the protests against the pipeline took place. The courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, sits across the Missouri River from the state capital, Bismarck. Citing concerns about potential jury bias, Greenpeace's legal team tried, unsuccessfully, to move the case to a different court.

Though the area is not in the Bakken oil patch, many residents work in the oil industry. Timothy Purdon, who served as North Dakota's U.S. attorney from 2010 to 2015, and who is not involved in the case, said the jury pool in Morton County is likely to include a high percentage of people who work in the oil industry - and few Native Americans.

"I've been practicing law in Bismarck for 30 years and I've never seen a Native person on the jury panel in any case I've been involved in," Purdon said.

Some free speech advocates and civil rights attorneys said they plan to travel to North Dakota to monitor the proceedings, given the case's possible implications.

"In my six decades of practice, I've seen many abuses of the legal system, and this case raises serious concerns," said Martin Garbus, a constitutional trial lawyer who is part of the monitoring committee.

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