{"id":1688,"date":"2017-05-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/1688\/georgia-court-agrees-with-greenpeace-transfers-logging-companys-rico-case-to-northern-california\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:23:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:23:05","slug":"georgia-court-agrees-with-greenpeace-transfers-logging-companys-rico-case-to-northern-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/press\/1688\/georgia-court-agrees-with-greenpeace-transfers-logging-companys-rico-case-to-northern-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Court Agrees with Greenpeace, Transfers Logging Company\u2019s RICO Case to Northern California"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today, the United States Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued a ruling transferring the Resolute v Greenpeace lawsuit to the Northern District of California, as Resolute failed to demonstrate that the case should be heard in Georgia.Filed by logging company Resolute Forest Products in May 2016, the CAD$ 300 million case is asking for independent environmental organizations Greenpeace International, U.S. Greenpeace entities and Stand.earth to be labeled a \u2018criminal enterprise\u2019 under anti-racketeering (RICO) laws originally created to prosecute the mafia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a positive development for the case,\u201d said Greenpeace USA General Counsel Tom Wetterer. \u201cWe have said all along that Greenpeace activities in Georgia constituted legitimate advocacy to protect the boreal forest, not criminal conduct. We are confident that when the California court examines our motions to dismiss, the court will reach the same conclusion regarding the work we have done elsewhere: this is all protected speech, covered by the First Amendment. This is a textbook SLAPP suit,\u201d said Todd Paglia, Executive Director of Stand.earth, \u201cand the court just delivered Resolute\u2019s first, and far from its last, major defeat in its attempt to silence critics with a bully lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Court ruled that Resolute failed to explain how Greenpeace\u2019s outreach to Resolute and its Shareholders in a meeting in Georgia amounted to fraud or extortion. When Greenpeace campaigners described their attendance at the meeting as \u201can opportunity to ask Resolute to make protecting the Boreal Forest a key priority\u201d and invited people to support the event on Facebook and Twitter, this, according to the court \u201cat best support[s] the inference that Defendants organized and held a protest\u201d \u201c[Plaintiffs do not] provide a factual basis from which to infer that Defendants committed fraud or extortion before, during, or after the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resolute claimed that the suit should be heard in Georgia because it has US operations there, but Greenpeace argued for a change of venue to Northern California because most of the statements cited in the case come from defendants that live and work in that area.<\/p>\n

\u201cResolute\u2019s attempt to have this case tried in Georgia, and the subsequent decision by the judge to allow it to be transferred to California is consistent with Greenpeace\u2019s argument that the original choice of Georgia by Resolute was \u2018forum shopping\u2019, a defining characteristic of a SLAPP suit, where a plaintiff looks to file the lawsuit in a favorable district. We\u2019re heartened to see that the judge agrees with us and has moved what we still consider a meritless lawsuit to a more appropriate district,\u201d said Wetterer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope Resolute will come to its senses, stops bullying environmental advocates and makes genuine moves to protect Canada\u2019s boreal forests\u201d, Paglia said.<\/p>\n

Notes to editors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1] Click here<\/a> to access the May 16, 2017 ruling by the United States Court for the Southern District of Georgia.<\/p>\n

[2] Click here<\/a> for more information and documents about the existing legal cases between Resolute Forest Products and defendants.<\/p>\n

[3] Today, Greenpeace published the report \u201cClearcutting Free Speech: How Resolute Forest Products is Going to Extremes to Silence Critics of its Controversial Logging Practices\u201d, presenting the implications of the company\u2019s massive legal attack on its critics, which aims to redefine activism as criminal activity. Click here<\/a> to access the report.<\/p>\n

Contacts<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

hdena@greenpeace.org