Mandan, North Dakota<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 A Morton County jury of nine reached a verdict in Energy Transfer\u2019s meritless lawsuit against Greenpeace entities in the US (Greenpeace Inc, Greenpeace Fund), and Greenpeace International, finding the entities liable for more than US$660 million, today. Big Oil Bullies around the world will continue to try to silence free speech and peaceful protest, but the fight against Energy Transfer\u2019s meritless SLAPP lawsuit is not over. Big Oil Bullies around the world will continue to try to silence free speech and peaceful protest, but the fight against Energy Transfer\u2019s meritless SLAPP lawsuit is not over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":60476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,126],"tags":[86,84,108],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-60433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-pollution","category-policy-and-justice","tag-energy","tag-environmental-justice","tag-human-rights","p4-page-type-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60437,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60433\/revisions\/60437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60433"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=60433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cThis case should alarm everyone, no matter their political inclinations,\u201d said\u00a0Sushma Raman, Interim Executive Director Greenpeace Inc, Greenpeace Fund.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s part of a renewed push by corporations to weaponise our courts to silence dissent. We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. These rights are critical for any work toward ensuring justice \u2013 and that\u2019s why we will continue fighting back together, in solidarity. While Big Oil bullies can try to stop a single group, they can\u2019t stop a movement.\u201d
\u201cWe are witnessing a disastrous return to the reckless behaviour that fuelled the climate crisis, deepened environmental racism, and put fossil fuel profits over public health and a liveable planet. The previous Trump administration spent four years dismantling protections for clean air, water, and Indigenous sovereignty, and now along with its allies wants to finish the job by silencing protest. We will not back down. We will not be silenced,\u201d said Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director.
In this case, Energy Transfer has maintained their entirely false claims that Greenpeace organised the #NoDAPL resistance at Standing Rock, an allegation rooted in racism in its erasure of the Indigenous leadership in North Dakota.
\u201cWhat we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer\u2019s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,\u201d\u00a0said Deepa Padmanabha, Senior Legal Advisor, Greenpeace USA<\/strong>. \u201cAnd while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace\u2019s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take. To be clear, Greenpeace\u2019s story is not the story of Standing Rock. Our story is how an organisation like Greenpeace USA can support critical fights to protect communities most impacted by the climate crisis, as well as continued attacks on Indigenous sovereignty.\u201d
This lawsuit is one of the largest Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases ever filed. These are meritless lawsuits meant to silence or bankrupt opponents \u2013 which is why most U.S. states and several countries have put legal protections in place to protect advocates. But in North Dakota \u2013 and 15 other states \u2013 no anti-SLAPP statutes exist.
Greenpeace entities will continue fighting back against this case, including by appealing to the North Dakota Supreme Court.
In February 2024, Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union\u2019s anti-SLAPP Directive by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against ET. GPI seeks to recover damages and costs it has suffered as a result of ET\u2019s back-to-back, meritless lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars against GPI and the Greenpeace organisations in the US.\u201cEnergy Transfer hasn\u2019t heard the last of us in this fight. We\u2019re just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer\u2019s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest,\u201d\u00a0said Kristin Casper, Greenpeace International General Counsel<\/strong>. \u201cWe will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"