Some of the Greenpeace team hold up a banner outside the Morton County Memorial Courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota March 16, 2025. Ten years after the world watched the Indigenous-led protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline unfold, representatives from Greenpeace International (GPI) and two Greenpeace entities in the United States fight a meritless lawsuit brought by Energy Transfer in the Morton County Memorial Courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota. The US-based fossil fuel pipeline company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline is seeking US0 million in damages in one of the world’s most brazen examples of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). ET’s lawsuit attempts to rewrite the history of the Indigenous-led protest at Standing Rock and could have a chilling impact on free speech in the US and beyond. Since 2017, GPI and Greenpeace organizations in the US have been defending against ET’s lawsuits, which ridiculously claim the protests were orchestrated by Greenpeace. The trial is currently open to the public in the North Dakota courthouse. Multiple attempts by media and watchdog groups to petition the court for greater transparency and accessibility to the trial proceedings have been denied. The Greenpeace parties’ request for public livestreaming was denied, and a request for expanded media cover by a number of outlets and journalists was also denied.
© Stephanie Keith / Greenpeace

The jury has officially reached a verdict in our trial against Big Oil company Energy Transfer’s meritless lawsuit.

This verdict is not the end of this case. Although a jury of nine people in North Dakota has decided that Greenpeace entities are liable for over $660 million in damages, this isn’t over.

We’re going to appeal. And we’re prepared to fight this all the way to victory. 

We absolutely believe in our legal defense. We believe the law is fully on our side. We believe in what we did at Standing Rock, and that ultimately we will prevail against this meritless lawsuit.

Before we discuss next steps, let’s acknowledge that this is a dark moment in United States history. And let’s talk about what “victory” actually means.

We’ve fought Energy Transfer’s lawsuits for more than seven years. Every step of the way, we’ve emphasized that these types of lawsuits —  intended to silence and shut down critics — are part of a growing national attack on our First Amendment rights. 

Global week of action - Solidarity against Energy Transfer Lawsuit - Poland. © Greenpeace / Max Zielinski
Energy Transfer is trying to silence our movement.

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The truth is, “victory” doesn’t just mean defeating this specific lawsuit. It means that no other organization or individual has to defend themselves against this type of attack.

This lawsuit was designed to scare and divide our movement. Instead, the opposite has happened — in the last year alone, more than 350,000 individuals around the world and more than 430 organizations representing millions of people have spoken out against it.

Thankfully, we’ve never been lonely in this fight. It’s entirely thanks to Greenpeace supporters that we’ve had the resources to fight back for more than seven years without ever slowing down our work campaigning for a green and peaceful future.

Greenpeace USA was founded on nonviolent direct action and peaceful protest over 50 years ago, and we’ve exercised our right to peacefully expose environmental harm ever since. Energy Transfer chose to target three Greenpeace entities because of what our history represents.

We are simply a community of people who share a set of values, and our community is part of a larger global movement. No courtroom or judgement can stop that movement.

As we’ve long said: we will not be silenced, and our movement will endure.

For now, we’ll leave you with this quote from Standing Rock Grassroots member Waniya Locke, published last month in The New York Times: 

“When you look back at history, they always try to wipe us out.”

Beyond just attempting to diminish every American’s free speech rights, this lawsuit attempts to erase Indigenous leadership. It’s an attack on Indigenous sovereignty, and a racist attempt to rewrite the actual history of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. 

More than seven years later, we remain deeply proud of what we did to support that Indigenous-led resistance. We own everything we did, because what we did was simply living our values.

With your support, we will continue living those values for many years to come.