Greenpeace Lawsuit: $345M Verdict, Appeal, and Netherlands Case

The Greenpeace pipeline verdict began as a $667 million jury award in March 2025 and was cut to roughly $345 million by a North Dakota judge later that year, with final judgment entered on February 27, 2026. A Morton County jury found three Greenpeace entities liable for their role in the 2016–2017 Dakota Access Pipeline protests near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, on claims including trespass, nuisance, defamation, tortious interference with business, and civil conspiracy. Greenpeace has filed a motion for a new trial, says it will appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court if necessary, and has warned that the judgment “may force it into bankruptcy in the United States.”¹

What the Jury Decided

After a 12-day trial in Mandan, North Dakota, the jury returned its verdict on March 19, 2025, awarding pipeline developer Energy Transfer and Dakota Access LLC roughly $667 million against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Inc. (Greenpeace USA), and the Greenpeace Fund.²

Liability was not uniform across the three entities. Greenpeace USA was found liable on nearly every claim, including conspiracy, trespass, nuisance, tortious interference with business, and defamation. Greenpeace International was found liable for defamation, interference with business, and conspiracy, but not for on-the-ground harms caused by protesters. The Greenpeace Fund was found liable for defamation and interference with business. The jury also found that the Greenpeace entities had incited illegal behavior by anti-pipeline protesters.²

Energy Transfer’s defamation case at trial was narrowed to nine specific statements grouped into three categories: that the company deliberately desecrated culturally significant Standing Rock Sioux sites, that it used excessive force against peaceful protesters, and that the pipeline crossed tribal lands. Greenpeace argued at trial and in post-trial filings that it had relied on reputable sources for those statements, including United Nations reports, the advocacy group BankTrack, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and news outlets, and that no witness had established Greenpeace as the proximate cause of Energy Transfer’s claimed refinancing, security, or public-relations costs.³

How the $667 Million Award Was Cut in Half

On October 29, 2025, Southwest Judicial District Judge James D. Gion granted several of Greenpeace’s post-trial motions and reduced the award to about $345 million, agreeing that the jury figure exceeded statutory damage caps and contained internal inconsistencies.⁴

The reductions broke down this way:

Trespass to land damages were eliminated for parcels Energy Transfer claimed to possess, because the court found no evidence the pipeline developers held a possessory interest in the real estate. Trespass claims tied to pipeline owner Dakota Access were sustained.⁵
Conversion claims for unlawful seizure and abuse of property were thrown out because the court found no evidence that equipment had been disabled for a significant period.⁵
Defamation took the largest single cut, from roughly $250 million to about $50 million. The judge eliminated duplicative awards and ruled that punitive damages could not be assessed for the defamation findings.⁶
Conspiracy damages were reduced from about $22.5 million to $3.5 million.⁶

What remained included roughly $149 million for on-the-ground harms such as trespass and nuisance, about $143 million for interference with business, and the reduced defamation and conspiracy amounts.⁶ On February 27, 2026, Judge Gion entered final judgment for $345,358,436, plus 11% interest running from the March 19, 2025 verdict date.⁴

Why This Case Exists

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,100-mile crude-oil pipeline running through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, developed by a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer. In 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe launched a major opposition campaign, arguing the pipeline threatened sacred lands and the reservation’s water supply where it crossed beneath a dammed section of the Missouri River. The protest camp drew representatives of more than 100 tribes and became one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in over a century. Police used rubber bullets, Tasers, and water cannons; private security used dogs and pepper spray; hundreds of arrests followed. The camps were cleared by late February 2017, and the pipeline began carrying oil that June.⁷

Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in federal court in August 2017 under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, alleging a criminal enterprise to delay construction and damage company property. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed the RICO claims with prejudice on February 14, 2019, writing that “donating to people whose cause you support does not create a RICO enterprise” and that “posting articles written by people with similar beliefs does not create a RICO enterprise.”⁸ He dismissed the accompanying state-law claims without prejudice, which allowed Energy Transfer to refile them days later in Morton County District Court in North Dakota. That refiled state case is the one that produced the March 2025 verdict.

The Free-Speech Fight

Greenpeace has framed the lawsuit from the start as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, arguing that Energy Transfer is using the courts to financially crush a critic rather than vindicate a genuine legal right.⁹ The organization warns the case could set a precedent holding advocacy groups responsible for the actions of unaffiliated individuals at protests.

In a March 2025 op-ed in The Guardian, Greenpeace USA interim executive director Sushma Raman and ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero wrote that the verdict threatens to “chill speech and silence future protests before they even begin” and that letting corporations “weaponize the court system” against political speech puts all First Amendment rights at risk.¹⁰ The Center for International Environmental Law called the verdict “a textbook example of corporate weaponization of the legal system to silence protest and intimidate communities.”¹¹

Energy Transfer’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher rejected the SLAPP framing, arguing that First Amendment protection does not extend to violent or destructive behavior and that Greenpeace paid for and dispatched trainers to organize construction-site camps, facilitating trespass and nuisance on the ground.¹² North Dakota does not have an anti-SLAPP statute, so Greenpeace had no procedural mechanism, common in many other states, to seek early dismissal on that ground.

Greenpeace’s Motion for a New Trial

On March 27, 2026, Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA filed a motion for a new trial in Morton County District Court, supported by a brief of more than 100 pages.¹³ The motion raises several grounds:

Jury bias. Greenpeace argues the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial given the community’s close ties to the oil industry, and has asked that any new trial be moved to Cass County.¹⁴
Evidentiary errors. The defense contends the court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence while excluding key evidence favorable to Greenpeace.
Jury instructions and verdict form errors.
Constitutional limits. Greenpeace maintains the U.S. Constitution does not allow liability on these facts, and that Energy Transfer failed to present sufficient evidence to support its claims.¹⁵

Judge Gion has not yet ruled on the motion. The court is also considering an appeal-bond dispute, with Greenpeace asking for a waiver or reduction of a $25 million bond and Energy Transfer pressing for the full amount.¹⁴ If the motion is denied, Greenpeace has said it will appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court.¹⁵ Energy Transfer has signaled it may separately challenge the reduction from $667 million to $345 million on appeal.¹⁶

The Parallel Case in the Netherlands

Two weeks before the North Dakota trial began, Greenpeace International filed a countersuit against Energy Transfer in the Netherlands on February 11, 2025, seeking a declaration that the U.S. litigation is a SLAPP and recovery of the legal costs Greenpeace has incurred defending it.¹⁷ Greenpeace is headquartered in Amsterdam, giving it a basis to file there.¹⁸

On May 7, 2026, the North Dakota Supreme Court directed Judge Gion to issue a “narrowly tailored” anti-suit injunction barring Greenpeace International from pursuing overlapping claims in the Netherlands, calling the timing of the Dutch action “vexatious” and finding the two proceedings “substantially similar.” Chief Justice Fair McEvers dissented.¹⁹ The injunction is not to cover claims based on the dismissed federal RICO suit or alleged out-of-court defamatory statements.⁵

The Dutch case moved forward anyway. On June 3, 2026, the Amsterdam District Court rejected Energy Transfer’s jurisdictional challenge and allowed Greenpeace’s case to proceed under Dutch law, finding that Greenpeace employees in the Netherlands were being compelled to defend U.S. lawsuits and that the pipeline protests had been directed from Greenpeace’s Dutch headquarters.¹⁸ The Amsterdam court ruled that the EU’s 2024 anti-SLAPP Directive does not apply, because it has not yet been transposed into Dutch law and does not apply retroactively, but held that Greenpeace’s claims may proceed under existing Dutch tort law.²⁰ Energy Transfer was given six weeks to respond. How the competing North Dakota and Dutch orders will interact remains unresolved.

What the Judgment Means for Greenpeace

The $345 million judgment, plus 11% interest, dwarfs the publicly known finances of the U.S. Greenpeace entities. Greenpeace has stated that the verdict “may force it into bankruptcy in the United States.”¹ Marco Simons, interim general counsel for Greenpeace USA and the Greenpeace Fund, called the final judgment “a setback” but said “Energy Transfer will fail in its goal of silencing its critics.”⁴

Greenpeace has published an open letter to Energy Transfer that it says has been signed by more than 350,000 individuals and 400 organizations, and continues to solicit donations through its campaign pages.⁹ Whether the organization survives the judgment financially will depend on what Judge Gion does with the new-trial motion, what the North Dakota Supreme Court does on appeal, and whether the Dutch litigation ever produces any offset.

1
The New York Times. Greenpeace Energy Transfer Verdict Dakota Access
2
North Dakota Monitor. Jury Finds Greenpeace at Fault for Protest Damages, Awards Pipeline Developer Hundreds of Millions
3
Greenpeace. Greenpeace Inc.’s Brief in Support of Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law
4
North Dakota Monitor. Judge Finalizes Order for Greenpeace to Pay $345 Million in North Dakota Oil Pipeline Case
5
Climate Case Chart. Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International
6
North Dakota Monitor. Judge Slashes Jury Damages in Greenpeace Case to $345 Million
7
Britannica. Standing Rock Protests
8
Desmog. Energy Transfer Racketeering Claims Greenpeace Dakota Access Pipeline Dismissed
9
Greenpeace USA. Energy Transfer Lawsuit
10
Greenpeace USA. Greenpeace USA x ACLU Op-Ed
11
CIEL. Jury Verdict Greenpeace Free Speech Indigenous Rights
12
Gibson Dunn. Gibson Dunn Secures Over $660 Million in Damages in a Resounding Verdict for Energy Transfer
13
Greenpeace International. Greenpeace Motion for New Trial North Dakota
14
North Dakota Monitor. Greenpeace Seeks New Trial Claiming Jury Pool Biased in Case Over Dakota Access Pipeline
15
Greenpeace USA. Greenpeace Organizations to Appeal $345 Million North Dakota Court Judgment
16
News From the States. Judge Finalizes Order for Greenpeace to Pay $345 Million in North Dakota Oil Pipeline Case
17
Greenpeace International. Legal Documents for Energy Transfer’s SLAPP Lawsuits
18
JURIST. Netherlands Court Allows Greenpeace Lawsuit Against Energy Transfer to Proceed
19
Greenpeace International. North Dakota Supreme Court Opinion
20
European Association of Private International Law. Dutch Court Establishes Jurisdiction in the Greenpeace Anti-SLAPP Case