When the environmental group Greenpeace lost a nearly $670 million verdict this month over its role in oil pipeline protests, a quarter-billion dollars of the damages were awarded not for the actual demonstrations, but for defaming the pipeline’s owner. The costly verdict has raised alarm among activist organizations as well as some First Amendment experts,…
A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against its Dakota Access Pipeline. The verdict was a major blow to the storied environmental organization. Greenpeace had maintained that it…
The opening week of the landmark trial of Greenpeace in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer over the Dakota Access Pipeline protests did not bode well for the defense. Lawyers for Greenpeace said so themselves in a petition filed in North Dakota’s Supreme Court. They asked the court on Thursday to move the trial out…
Lawyers for the pipeline company Energy Transfer and Greenpeace fired their opening salvos in a North Dakota courtroom Wednesday morning in a civil trial that could bankrupt the storied environmental group. The suit revolves around the role Greenpeace played in massive protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline nearly a decade ago. The pipeline,…