After two days of deliberations, a jury in North Dakota state court decided on Wednesday that Greenpeace owes $660 million in damages to pipeline giant Energy Transfer, controlled by billionaire Kelcy Warren. The civil case concerned the year-long protests in 2016-2017 by anti-fossil fuel activists attempting to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace, brought in 2019, alleged defamation, nuisance, conspiracy and trespass on the pipeline’s construction site near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
The Dallas-based company contended that Greenpeace had paid protesters, provided training and supplies, and had disrupted construction, causing costly delays for the company, which nonetheless completed the 1,200-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline in 2017. It now carries 40% of the oil produced in North Dakota’s Bakken shale to refineries in Illinois.
The company in a statement said the decision was sure to be supported by “Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”
Warren, net worth $7.5 billion, previously claimed that he wanted the case to “send a message” that attacks on energy infrastructure can’t be tolerated. He said in 2018 that some protesters (perhaps those who drilled holes in already built portions of the pipeline) “should be removed from the gene pool.”
Greenpeace argued in court that it only played a minor role in the protests, which were backed by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, concerned about potential environmental devastation if the pipeline were to leak crude oil into the Missouri River upstream from their reservation.
Greenpeace has claimed ET’s suit was an attack on free speech and intends to appeal the decision, which could bankrupt the group that got its start in the early 1970s protesting nuclear bomb tests.
According to the Bismarck Tribune, Warren said in court that he had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate an end to the protests and had been willing to hand over to the tribe nearby lands known as Cannonball Ranch, and also to build a new school on the reservation — overtures the tribe rejected.
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