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Greenpeace International is suing US pipeline operator Energy Transfer in a Dutch court, alleging the fossil fuel company is using spurious legal actions to try to silence and bankrupt the organisation in a test of new EU rules on freedom of speech.
The lawsuit, filed at the District Court of Amsterdam on Tuesday, is the latest salvo in an eight-year transatlantic legal battle between the global campaign group and Energy Transfer, which was co-founded by Kelcy Warren, a prominent donor to Donald Trump.
Greenpeace is seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in costs and potential damages stemming from Energy Transfer’s lawsuits against the environmental group in the US over its protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. However, there is no guarantee the environmental group could enforce any award for damages in the US, say legal experts.
Back in 2017 Energy Transfer filed a lawsuit in North Dakota alleging Greenpeace and its US entities spread false information about the planned 1,700-mile oil pipeline, injuring the company’s relationships with banks and inspiring protesters to vandalise its property.
The pipeline, which cuts across Iowa, North and South Dakota and Illinois, eventually got built, but Warren vowed to seek retribution against Greenpeace, saying in a 2017 television interview: “What they did to us is wrong, and they’re going to pay for it.”
Later this month Greenpeace and its US entities are set to go to trial in a state court in North Dakota in a civil case filed by Energy Transfer, which could leave the environmental group liable for more than $300mn in damages for its 2016 protests.
Greenpeace is hoping its lawsuit in the Netherlands will insulate it against any potential losses in the North Dakota case, which could bankrupt its US operations and deter individuals from exercising their right to freedom of speech under the US constitution.
It hopes to set a legal precedent by invoking a new EU directive seeking to crack down on so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapps, which aim to intimidate and silence critics, including activists and journalists with costly, time-consuming legal proceedings.
Greenpeace said that a legal victory in the Dutch court should prevent Energy Transfer from getting any judgment it receives in the North Dakota case registered in the Netherlands, which would protect its assets there.
Daniel Simons, senior legal counsel at Greenpeace, said that the lawsuit, if successful, “will send a message to corporate bullies that the age of impunity is ending”.
“That would be a boost for civil society in the EU and point to solutions for those battling the Slapps phenomenon elsewhere,” he added.
In its counter lawsuit on Tuesday, Greenpeace argues that Energy Transfer’s legal actions in the US are “textbook examples” of harmful Slapp lawsuits, violating the environmental group’s rights to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights and protections codified under new EU anti-Slapp rules.
Energy Transfer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Warren, who once told an audience at the largest oil and gas conference in the US that green activists should be “removed from the gene pool”, donated $5mn to Trump’s re-election campaign last year, according to OpenSecrets.
The new EU rules, also known as Daphne’s law, come as 33 US states have moved to crack down on the use of abusive lawsuits, often by requiring the plaintiff to cover the legal costs of the defendant if the plaintiff loses the case, according to the Institute for Free Speech. North Dakota has not.
Greenpeace’s brand of non-violent disruptive protest has been met by an increasingly robust response from fossil fuel companies around the world, which it has shaken off with some success.
Last March a French court dismissed a summons by TotalEnergies against Greenpeace, after the oil group contested a report estimating its greenhouse gas footprint. In December Greenpeace settled a lawsuit brought by Shell that the campaign group estimated would have led to it facing more than $11mn in damages and legal costs.
