Amnesty International calls Greenpeace loss a “chilling verdict”

MANDAN, ND – Environmental advocacy organization Greenpeace has to pay $660 million to fossil fuel company Energy Transfer (ET), formerly Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), and its subsidiary Dakota Access for damage and defamation a jury says Greenpeace caused during the 2016 and 2017 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).  

Last week, the nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota, found Greenpeace guilty on numerous counts finding it liable for trespass, conspiracy, defamation and other offenses. This included Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. Greenpeace has said it will appeal.

The case originates from the protests near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2014, ETP had proposed to build the pipeline during the Bakken oil boom to transport half a million barrels of North Dakota oil daily through the Dakotas and Iowa to a distribution point in Illinois. There had been opposition but shortly after taking office, Donald Trump reversed an Obama Administration decision and announced that it would allow Energy Transfer Partners to drill under Lake Oahe.

Indigenous activists and environmentalists opposed the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing under Lake Oahe. Standing Rock leaders expressed concerns that a spill could compromise their water supply, that construction would affect sacred lands, and that they had not been adequately consulted.

ETP CEO Kelcy Warren dismissed concerns about the pipeline’s impact on the water supply saying they were “unfounded” and that the numerous archaeological studies conducted with the state historic preservation offices “found no sacred items along the route.”

In late July 2016, Attorneys for Standing Rock took their first legal action to block the pipeline by filing an official complaint against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (ACE) permit granting process, after Dakota Access had said six months earlier that it had received a permit and was planning to have the pipeline transporting nearly 500-thousand barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to Illinois by the end of 2016.

Protests were being organized by Standing Rock and other Sioux tribes. By September, Energy Transfer Partners had hired TigerSwan, a private security firm who clashed with protesters. Witnesses said that the private security workers used pepper spray on protestors and were seen deploying dogs against the protestors who were demonstrating in a pipeline construction area where cultural artifacts were thought to reside. This garnered international attention and worldwide support. People began flocking to the camp that had been set up near the Reservation.

The Morton Conty sheriff’s office investigated the incident and found that TigerSwan hadn’t gotten a security license from the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board and had been operating illegally in the state for months, according to an investigative article from The Grist in partnership with The Intercept. It was eventually revealed that TigerSwan had a close working relationship with the National Sheriff’s Association.

That month the protests heated up. There was vandalism and confrontations with law enforcement.  ETP blamed Greenpeace for funding the unrest and acts of vandalism. Greenpeace said its role in the protests was minor and in fact they were attempting to de-escalate.

Even though he appeared to be sympathetic, the judge denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for a temporary injunction saying they hadn’t proven injury. In a joint statement from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior and Department of the Army intervened by saying ACE should not proceed with construction and asked the company to honor the request pending further evaluation and consultation with the tribe.

ETP moved ahead with construction anyway. The Morton County Sheriff arrested more than 25 people who demonstrated at the site, according to reporting from NPR.  

At the end of October, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II, citing the militarization of law enforcement, requested that the U.S. Attorney General investigate to protect the civil rights of protesters.

In early November, President Obama asked ACE to look at other possible routes for the pipeline. But by the end of the month, as frigid temperatures were descending on the encampment, law enforcement was using tear gas and spraying water at crowds of demonstrators, who were told to leave and Governor Jack Dalrymple ordered an evacuation of the area.

Trump signed the order to advance the pipeline’s construction in January of 2017 and by March, the pipeline and a feeder line leaked more than 100 gallons of oil in North Dakota.  Nevertheless, the pipeline began shipping oil on June 1, 2017.

Eventually, TigerSwan was exposed for surveilling and spying on protesters as it was simultaneously creating a marketing campaign to drum up profits from energy clients. In 2022, North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that thousands of internal TigerSwan documents that were found as part of a discovery request must be made public. However, because the state of North Dakota allows ET to weigh in on which documents should be redacted, ET is disputing which of the 9,000 pages should be released. Not only was

Last week’s trial was covered by a monitoring group consisting of human rights and environmental lawyers concerned that the trial would be conducted unfairly. The Independent Trial Monitors claim the trial was “patently biased in favor of Energy Transfer, with many members working in the fossil fuel industry.” They said the presiding judge had no experience or legal knowledge to rule properly on the First Amendment as well as other evidentiary issues pertinent to the case.  They said also that Energy Transfer attorneys used incendiary and prejudicial statements to try to criminalize Greenpeace “and by extension the entire climate movement by attacking constitutionally protected advocacy.”

In their publicly released statement regarding the verdict in the Greenpeace Trial, the Monitors say that Greenpeace was denied a right to a fair trial and cited multiple violations of due process observed by attorneys who were monitoring every minute of the proceedings.

Natalie Segovia, the Executive Director and Senior Attorney for the Water Protector Legal Collective said that Energy Transfer has an abysmal safety record. “This case was a deliberate orchestration by a pipeline company not only to silence dissent, but to carefully shape a corporate narrative that demonizes environmental justice and Indigenous rights movements. Despite Energy Transfer’s record, they continue to operate the Dakota Access Pipeline without a permit across Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s unceded Treaty lands.”

She said that the company desecrated burial sites during construction of the pipeline and then denied it during trial, with upper management calling the accusation “fake news.”

Meanwhile, Segovia says critical information continues to surface about Energy Transfer’s practices. “For instance, news this week that the Pennsylvania Attorney General is launching a new investigation into Energy Transfer and one of its subsidiaries, Sunoco, for committing environmental crimes in that state, in addition to 23 criminal convictions that Energy Transfer already has for contaminating water in Pennsylvania and Ohio.”

The Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHSMA) reports a preliminary investigation found that Energy Transfer leaked jet fuel for at least 16 months on the Twin Oaks pipeline in Pennsylvania which is a part of DAPL. A sleeve installed 20 years ago was found to be faulty and PHSMA said that 44 similar sleeves on the pipeline may be at risk of leaking.

The Monitors also claim according to their observations that this was a SLAPP harassment case. SLAPP, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, is a harassment case that is filed not to win a case but to intimidate, harass, and silence critics or opponents by forcing them to spend time and money defending a meritless case, often with the goal of chilling free speech.

Amnesty International agreed and said this is a “chilling verdict. There is no doubt that it will have a chilling effect on those campaigning to expose wrongdoing by powerful companies in the United State and all over the world,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s Secretary General.

The Monitors in their public statement said that in coming weeks they will be issuing a full report documenting the violations that they observed as well as larger flaws in the case. Segovia said this case is far from over. “This moment underscores the importance of continued monitoring to ensure that our judicial institutions truly serve the people and are not manipulated by powerful corporations, and that due process of law is more than just a lofty aspiration.”

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

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