A north Dakota jury considers that Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the Energy Transfer company for the protests that took place almost a decade ago against the construction of a pipeline.
Energy Transfer Partners, an oil and gas company based in Dallas with a value of almost 70,000 million dollars and chaired by one of the main donors of Donald Trump, had sued Greenpeace for defamation and for orchestrating what he considered a “criminal behavior” of the protesters against the Dakota Access pipeline, claiming that the organization had “incited” to protest through a “campaign to protest misinformation ”. In return, he claimed 300 million euros.
The environmental group, which before the trial had expressed concern about the risk that the trial was not right in a state where the gas and oil industry has enormous weight, had advanced that enormous financial compensation could bring its activities in the United States to bankruptcy. Although the amount of compensation is about to be determined, the jury has given the reason to Energy Transfer in most of the positions filed against Greenpeace.
The case has been closely followed by various NGOs and experts in freedom of expression in fear of its impact on social protests and activism. Greenpeace has affirmed in a statement after the verdict that demands such as Energy Transfer aim to “destroy the right to peaceful protest.”
“What we have seen during these three weeks of judgment has been the shameless contempt of Energy Transfer by the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe [que protestó contra el oleoducto]. And although they have also tried to distort the truth about the role of Greenpeace in the protests, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to non -violence in every action we take, ”said Deepa Padmanabha, main legal advisor of Greenpeace.
“We should all be concerned about the future of the first amendment that regulates freedom of expression and demands such as these destined to destroy our rights to peaceful protest and freedom. Greenpeace will continue to fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for all,” he said.
Concerns about the possibility of finding an impartial jury focused the case even before it began, given the conservative political inclinations of the town of Mandan, Dakota del Norte, and the rejection of protests among local residents. In the months before the trial, mysterious envelopes were also sent to the residents, who pretended to be a newspaper called “Central Nd News”, with biased items on the protests against the Pipeline OA favor of Energy Transfer.
In fact, in the end more than half of those selected to be part of the jury that has failed against Greenpeace had links with the business of negative fuels and opinions towards protests against pipelines or pressure groups that participate in them.
Greenpeace tried to transfer the trial to another North Dakota county on several occasions, but his requests were rejected by the Morton County Court and the North Dakota Supreme Court. Judge James Gion, who was hired to direct the trial after all Morton County judges were challenged, denied the requests to issue it live.
“Today’s verdict is not a reflection of misconduct by Greenpeace, but rather the result of a long list of judicial tactics and propaganda tricks that Energy Transfer used to deny Greenpeace his right to a fair trial,” said Kirk Herbertson, New York lawyer and US director of campaigns of Earthright International. “We hope that the North Dakota Supreme Court question why this case came to trial in the first place.”
Judicial sources have considered this case as a paradigmatic example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP, for its acronym in English), a form of civil litigation increasingly used by large companies, politicians and individuals to wear out and deliberately silence critics, including journalists, activists and surveillance groups. These cases, even when demanding entities lose, cause significant legal costs for the defendants and may have a paralyzing effect.
During the five -week trial, Energy Transfer has tried to link a series of sabotage caused by protests to Greenpeace to Greenpeace, which has argued that its participation was small and request from the Sioux tribe of Standing Rock.
The tribe itself issued a statement after the beginning of the trial stating that it had been the one who had headed the protests. According to the natives, Energy Transfer was “accusing frivolously of defamation and seeking compensation to silence all voice that supports Standing Rock. The case is an attempt to silence our tribe about the truth of what happened and the threat that the pipeline for our land, our water and our people represents. The Sioux de Standing Rock tribe will not be silenced,” said his president, Janet Alkire.
In the last days of the trial, Kelcy Warren, the multimillionaire founder of Energy Transfer and one of Donald Trump’s main donors, said in a video statement that his company had offered financial incentives – including money, a luxury ranch and a new school – to the tribe to stop the protests, that the tribe rejected, according to a group of observers who attended the trial due to their impartial. Warren said he believed that the tribe rejected the offer because Earthjustice, the environmental organization that he exercises as a legal representative of the tribe, had offered him more.
The trial occurred after Energy transferred in a first lawsuit filed before an American Federal Court in 2017. After the case was dismissed on February 14, 2019, Energy Transfer returned to filed a virtually identical complaint in the North Dakota State Court seven days later. In that state, much more favorable to its interests, it has ended up being successful.
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