430+ Organizations and 330,000+ Individuals Supported Greenpeace Organizations in the Fight Against Abuse of the Legal System and Corporate Overreach
As of February 21, 2025, North Dakota had become the battleground for one of the most consequential free speech cases in recent history. Energy Transfer, the Big Oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, pursued $300 million in damages from Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International, accusing these organizations of playing a central role in organizing the Indigenous-led resistance to the pipeline back in 2016. The lawsuit stood as one of the largest Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases ever filed and one of the biggest cases to go to court in North Dakota. The trial began on February 24, 2025.
“This case is a prime example of corporations abusing the legal system to silence critics and keep their operations secret,” said Sushma Raman, Greenpeace USA Interim Executive Director. “It is also a critical test of the future of the First Amendment – both freedom of speech and peaceful protest – under the Trump Administration and beyond. But we are fighting back, and we did not fight back alone.”
More than 430 organizations signed an open letter to Energy Transfer, including 350.org, Public Citizen, ACLU North Dakota, SEIU, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Amnesty International USA (view full organisation list), along with public figures such as Billie Eilish, Jane Fonda, Adam McKay, and Susan Sarandon – plus over 350,000 individuals from around the world.
“One of the things I really want to stress is that the #noDAPL, Mní Wičóni water is life movement grew organically,” said Waniya Locke, a member of Standing Rock Grassroots. “I want it to be very clear that there were no NGOs that started or organized our resistance. And it was matriarch-led. It was led by women who stood strong, who stood on the riverbanks unarmed.”
The Claims
Energy Transfer’s claims against the Greenpeace entities fell into three broad categories: defamation, tortious interference, and on-the-ground claims.
The defamation claims alleged that the Greenpeace entities made false statements, which caused damages to the company.
“The important thing to note here is that by the time Greenpeace entities made any of these statements that are at issue, these were statements that were already widely circulated in the public,” said Deepa Padmanabha. “These were not statements that Greenpeace invented, and they were all legitimate expressions of the First Amendment protected right to speak.”
Energy Transfer also claims that Greenpeace made alleged false statements to financial institutions involved with financing the Dakota Access Pipeline – and that based on those statements, the financial institutions took action that cost Energy Transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. However, the financial institutions had their own commitments and conducted their own due diligence regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“The last bucket of claims related to on-the-ground incidents such as trespass, conversion, and aiding and abetting,” said Padmanabha. “This is the area of claims that made it clear that Energy Transfer’s target is much bigger than Greenpeace. Beyond the impact that this could have had on the Greenpeace entities, one of the most worrisome things about the case is that it could have established dangerous new legal precedents that could hold any participant at protests responsible for the actions of others at those protests – including unknown individuals. And you can imagine that this would have a serious chilling effect on anybody who wants to engage in protest.”
“Greenpeace played an extremely limited role at Standing Rock and is proud of showing up in solidarity with Standing Rock activists. At no time did Greenpeace engage in property destruction or violence. All claims to the contrary showed a reckless disregard for the truth.”
Fighting Back Against SLAPP Lawsuits
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. These types of cases masqueraded as ordinary civil lawsuits, but their true purpose was to retaliate against those who spoke out against harm. Such meritless lawsuits were meant to silence or bankrupt opponents by dragging defendants through a long, lengthy, expensive legal process.
As SLAPPs grew as a threat, most U.S. states put legal protections in place to protect advocates. But in North Dakota – and 15 other states – no anti-SLAPP statutes existed. Last Congress, Representatives Raskin, Wyden, and Kiley introduced bipartisan legislation to deter corporations from filing SLAPP suits and to protect everyone’s right to free speech. In Europe, the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive entered into force in May 2024.
On February 11, 2025, Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the EU’s new anti-SLAPP Directive by filing a lawsuit against Energy Transfer in the Netherlands.
“Energy Transfer attempted to hold Greenpeace International, a Dutch-based nonprofit foundation, accountable for hundreds of millions of dollars of alleged damages for signing on to a letter with over 500 organizations from more than 50 countries,” said Greenpeace International General Counsel Kristin Casper. “It was this, along with many more reasons, that we believed Energy Transfer’s pending US$300 million suit was a contender for the award of the most blatant SLAPP anywhere in the world.”
Big Oil companies Shell, Total, and ENI also filed SLAPPs against Greenpeace entities in recent years. Just last year, Shell went after Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. After a quarter of a million people spoke out, the lawsuit was settled in December 2024.
“Greenpeace faced a long history of threats,” said Charlie Cray, Greenpeace USA Senior Strategist. “When the Rainbow Warrior ship was bombed in 1985, we said ‘you can’t sink a rainbow.’ And now we’re saying: ‘you can’t sue a movement.’ Whatever happened in North Dakota, we would continue to campaign for a green and peaceful future.”
Partner Quotes
“The lawsuit against Greenpeace was also an attack on the Indigenous movement in our fight for self-determination to protect Mother Earth, our waters, sacred and cultural sites, and our youth and future generations. These colonialist lawsuits tried to send a warning to anyone who might consider speaking out and to be quiet – any of you could be next.” – Morgan Brings Plenty, Standing Rock Youth Council
“The case against Greenpeace illustrated how mega-corporations could use lawsuits to silence, intimidate, and ruin their critics. America had to demand, and Congress had to pass, bipartisan legislation to protect First Amendment rights against ruinous litigation practices.” – Rep. Jamie Raskin
“Amnesty International USA stood steadfast with Greenpeace USA in their fight against Big Oil’s attempt to punish and silence a strong advocate for environmental rights and climate justice for its fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. As we experienced the continual warming of our planet year over year due to the burning of fossil fuels, we needed Greenpeace USA now more than ever to advocate and be a strong voice for the communities most at risk from the impacts of the climate crisis, rather than defending itself against retaliatory lawfare.” – Justin Mazzola, Researcher, Amnesty International USA
“Everyone who said they cared about freedom – of whatever political stripe – needed to join together to support the Greenpeace campaign to protect people’s right to speak out against corporate abuses. As Greenpeace knew from its own experience, too often corporations used their political, economic, and legal power not just to run PR campaigns justifying their wrongdoing, but to threaten public interest advocates with bad-faith lawsuits (SLAPPs) and other intimidation tactics.” – Robert Weissman, Co-president of Public Citizen
“Protesters and advocacy groups should never have had to fear the weight of groups like ETP [Energy Transfer Partners] as a condition for expressing their First Amendment rights. The court needed to see this lawsuit for what it was and toss it.” – Brian Hauss, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU
“No matter how hard they tried, corporate powers could never silence the voice of the people. Working alongside movement allies, we knew our collective pursuit of liberation and transformative change endangered what corporations like Energy Transfer relied on: a status quo built on injustice. We knew this through our year-round issue-based and electoral organizing. TOP was proud to be in solidarity with Greenpeace as it fought this shameful attempt.”
