Energy Transfer Lawsuit vs. Greenpeace: $345M Verdict and Appeal

The Energy Transfer lawsuit against Greenpeace is a North Dakota state court case in which the pipeline company won a jury verdict of more than $667 million in March 2025 against three Greenpeace entities over the 2016–2017 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. A judge later reduced the award to roughly $345 million, and as of mid-2026 the case is caught up in a motion for a new trial, a fight over the appeal bond, a planned appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court, and a parallel lawsuit Greenpeace filed in the Netherlands.{¹}

What Energy Transfer Accused Greenpeace Of

Energy Transfer LP, developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline, sued Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Inc., and Greenpeace Fund Inc. in Morton County District Court on February 21, 2019 (Case No. 30-2019-CV-00180). The complaint also named the Red Warrior Society and two individual activists, Krystal Two Bulls and Cody Hall, though the individual defendants effectively fell out of the case before trial.{²}{³}

The state court claims sounded in ordinary tort law: trespass, conversion, nuisance, defamation, civil conspiracy, tortious interference with business, and aiding and abetting. Energy Transfer’s theory was that Greenpeace acted as a “puppet master,” coordinating and funding other groups and protesters to carry out illegal acts that damaged pipeline property and business relationships, and making defamatory statements about the company’s environmental record.{⁴}

Greenpeace’s response was that it had only six employees at Standing Rock while more than 100,000 people visited the protest camps, and that the suit was a strategic lawsuit against public participation — a SLAPP — meant to punish protected advocacy rather than to prove real coordination.{⁵}

The Earlier Federal RICO Case That Was Thrown Out

The state court suit was Energy Transfer’s second attempt. In August 2017, the company filed a federal lawsuit in the District of North Dakota against a broader group of defendants, including Greenpeace, BankTrack, and the Earth First! movement. That case was built around the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and defamation claims, alleging a criminal enterprise to damage the pipeline project.{⁶}{⁷}

Federal Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed the claims against BankTrack in July 2018, calling Energy Transfer’s RICO theory “dangerously broad,” and dismissed the rest of the case on February 14, 2019. The RICO allegations were thrown out with prejudice, meaning they could never be refiled. One week later, Energy Transfer refiled in North Dakota state court on state tort theories.{⁸}{⁶}

The $667 Million Jury Verdict

Trial before Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion ran from February 24 to March 19, 2025, with a jury drawn from Morton County. On March 19, 2025, the jury returned a unanimous verdict for Energy Transfer and found all three Greenpeace entities liable. Total damages exceeded $667 million: roughly $264 million in compensatory damages and $402 million in punitive (exemplary) damages.{⁵}

Greenpeace Inc. was found liable on the broadest set of claims: trespass, nuisance, conversion, aiding and abetting, defamation, tortious interference, and conspiracy. Greenpeace International was found liable for conspiracy, defamation, and tortious interference. Greenpeace Fund Inc. was also found liable.{⁹}

How the Award Was Cut to $345 Million

Both sides filed post-trial motions. On October 28, 2025, Judge Gion cut the damages significantly. He threw out the jury’s findings on trespass to land, ruling there was no evidence of a real estate interest, and eliminated the conversion and defamation per se findings, treating the latter as duplicative of the standard defamation claim. He also trimmed exemplary damages on several other claims and limited conspiracy damages.{⁹}

What survived: defamation, trespass to chattels, nuisance, conspiracy, tortious interference, and aiding and abetting. On February 27, 2026, Judge Gion entered a final judgment of $345,358,436, plus 11% annual interest running from the date of the jury verdict until payment.{¹}

Where the Case Stands Now

Motion for a New Trial

On March 27, 2026, Greenpeace moved for a new trial or to alter the judgment. The motion alleges jury bias, errors in jury instructions and the verdict form, and improper admission of irrelevant evidence. Greenpeace has focused on what it calls a tainted Morton County jury pool, pointing to a $3 million donation Energy Transfer made to the City of Mandan for public projects shortly after the lawsuit was filed. Greenpeace had also lost multiple attempts to move the trial to a different venue, both before the trial court and before the North Dakota Supreme Court.{¹⁰}

As of early April 2026, Judge Gion had not ruled on the motion. If it is denied, Greenpeace plans to appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Energy Transfer has signaled it may cross-appeal the reductions Judge Gion made to the original jury award, though no formal cross-appeal filing has been confirmed.{¹⁰}

The Bond Dispute

Under North Dakota law, a party seeking to delay payment of a judgment during an appeal must post a bond or other security. The statutory cap for that bond is $25 million. Greenpeace asked Judge Gion to waive the bond or reduce it to $5 million, saying it lacked the resources to post more. In a March 2026 filing, Greenpeace disclosed approximately $10–12 million in insurance coverage and $8.7 million in assets. Energy Transfer urged the court to require the full $25 million, and Judge Gion noted that obtaining such a large bond would be “challenging,” saying, “The magnitude of this matter defies simple decisions.”{¹¹}{¹⁰}

The judge initially granted Greenpeace an unsecured 61-day stay, so the organization did not have to pay any portion of the $345 million or post security during that window. Energy Transfer challenged even that limited reprieve, filing a motion to vacate the unsecured stay on the ground that North Dakota procedural rules require security for any stay beyond the initial 30-day automatic period. The bond fight was not fully resolved as of the most recent available filings.{¹²}

Greenpeace’s Counter-Lawsuit in the Netherlands

Two weeks before the North Dakota trial began, on February 11, 2025, Greenpeace International filed suit against Energy Transfer in the District Court of Amsterdam. Because Greenpeace International is headquartered in the Netherlands, it argued Dutch courts had jurisdiction and asked for a declaration that the North Dakota case was a SLAPP. The complaint invoked the European Union’s Anti-SLAPP Directive, adopted in 2024, which was designed to let EU courts refuse enforcement of abusive third-country judgments and potentially award damages to SLAPP targets.{²}

On June 3, 2026, the Amsterdam court issued an interlocutory judgment letting the case proceed. It accepted jurisdiction, reasoning that Greenpeace’s Dutch headquarters had directed protest activities cited in the American lawsuit and that Dutch-based employees had been forced to defend against U.S. litigation. But the court also ruled that the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive itself does not apply here, because the American lawsuits were filed in 2017 and 2019, before the directive’s May 2024 entry into force. Greenpeace’s claims will instead be evaluated under existing Dutch law. Energy Transfer was given six weeks to respond.{¹³}{¹⁴}

The Antisuit Injunction

Energy Transfer moved to shut down the Dutch case from the American side. After Judge Gion denied a request for an antisuit injunction in September 2025, Energy Transfer petitioned the North Dakota Supreme Court for a supervisory writ. On May 7, 2026, the court granted the petition and ordered Judge Gion to enter a “narrowly tailored” injunction blocking Greenpeace International from pursuing any claim in the Dutch action that would require a finding that the North Dakota case lacked legal foundation.{¹⁵}

The majority opinion, written by Justice Tufte, found the Dutch lawsuit “vexatious” given its timing and its function as a collateral attack on a verdict a North Dakota jury had already delivered. The court acknowledged international comity concerns but said they were diminished because the North Dakota action was filed first and Dutch law would let Greenpeace challenge enforcement of the American judgment at the enforcement stage. The injunction does not cover claims in the Dutch case that relate to Energy Transfer’s dismissed federal RICO suit or to alleged out-of-court defamatory statements. Chief Justice Fair McEvers dissented, arguing the trial court had acted within its discretion in refusing the injunction and questioning whether there was personal jurisdiction over Greenpeace International sufficient to issue the order.{¹⁵}

What the Verdict Means for Greenpeace

Greenpeace has called the judgment “potentially fatal” and warned it “could bankrupt” the organization in the United States.{¹⁶} As of mid-2026, though, the organization had not reported actual insolvency proceedings, layoffs, or specific restructuring. Greenpeace continues to describe the case as meritless and says it is “prepared to fight this all the way to victory.”{¹⁷}

Whether the judgment will ever be collected depends on the outcome of four moving pieces: the new-trial motion before Judge Gion, any appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court, the bond dispute, and the Dutch litigation over whether the verdict can be enforced against Greenpeace International’s European assets.

The SLAPP Question

The case has become a reference point in the debate over SLAPP lawsuits. North Dakota is one of many states without an anti-SLAPP statute, which in other jurisdictions allows defendants to seek early dismissal of suits that target protected speech or petition activity. The Protect the Protest Project and other advocacy groups have argued that in a state with such a law, the case would likely have been dismissed before trial.{¹⁸}

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose opposition to the pipeline drew the protesters in the first place, criticized the verdict on separate grounds. Tribal Chairwoman Janet Alkire called Energy Transfer’s narrative about Greenpeace’s role “patronizing and disrespectful to our people,” saying it minimized Indigenous leadership of the movement.{⁵}

Energy Transfer has framed the case as a legitimate response to real harms. Executive Chairman Kelcy Warren testified in a deposition that the purpose of the lawsuit was to “push back against an organized effort to harm the company,” citing defamation and what he described as “paid protesters.”{¹⁹}

One boundary worth flagging: this lawsuit is separate from the ongoing federal litigation over the Dakota Access Pipeline’s own operating permits and its easement to cross beneath Lake Oahe. Those disputes involve the Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, not Greenpeace, and their outcome does not directly control what Greenpeace will owe under the North Dakota judgment.{²⁰}

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