Energy Transfer attorney Trey Cox, center, and other attorneys for the Dakota Access Pipeline developer speak to media March 19, 2025, outside the Morton County Courthouse. (Amy Dalrymple/North Dakota Monitor)
MANDAN, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – The developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline has asked a North Dakota judge to stop Greenpeace from counter-suing it in the Netherlands.
Energy Transfer says Greenpeace is trying to undermine a March jury verdict that ordered the environmental group to pay the company more than $660 million, finding it responsible for defamation and inciting illegal behavior by anti-pipeline protesters. Greenpeace supported the protests started by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in 2016 against the pipeline’s construction.
Greenpeace denies Energy Transfer’s allegations, and has accused the company of bringing the lawsuit solely out of a desire to punish the environmental group for opposing the pipeline project.
Energy Transfer’s lawsuit is against three Greenpeace entities: Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Fund, its U.S. fundraising arm. Not long before the North Dakota lawsuit went to trial, the Netherlands-based Greenpeace International filed its own lawsuit against Energy Transfer in a Dutch court, arguing Energy Transfer’s legal challenge violated its rights.
Greenpeace says the case is the first filed under a European Union directive meant to prevent organizations from weaponizing the courts to silence speech they don’t like.
Energy Transfer this week called on Southwest Judicial District Court Judge James Gion to issue an emergency order telling Greenpeace it cannot pursue its lawsuit in the Netherlands as long as the North Dakota case and any appeals are pending.
“This extraordinary measure is necessitated solely by Greenpeace’s bad-faith tactics,” Trey Cox, the lead attorney representing Energy Transfer in the lawsuit, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Gion.
It is “well settled” that American courts can prohibit people under their jurisdiction from suing in other countries, Energy Transfer argued in court records.
Energy Transfer in the filing acknowledged that there are no known instances of a North Dakota court blocking a lawsuit in a foreign country, but added that this doesn’t mean Gion doesn’t have the power to do so.
Stephen Caplow, an attorney representing Greenpeace International in the North Dakota lawsuit, in a Wednesday letter to the judge said Energy Transfer’s allegations about the nature of the Dutch lawsuit lacked any “evidentiary or factual basis.”
He also questioned why the energy company waited until July to request Gion to stop the suit.
“A lawsuit that a party has known about for more than five months is not an ‘emergency,’” Caplow wrote.
He also said Energy Transfer’s court filings make it seem as if all three Greenpeace organizations involved in the North Dakota lawsuit are also parties in the Netherlands case, despite that only Greenpeace International is pursuing the Dutch lawsuit.
Gion has yet to issue a judgment in the North Dakota case. Greenpeace has requested that Gion overturn the jury’s verdict, or at least reduce it. Gion has not yet made a decision on those requests either.
Energy Transfer this week told Gion he should enter a judgment against Greenpeace soon in light of the Dutch lawsuit.
Caplow in his letter said Gion cannot issue a judgment until he sorts out Greenpeace’s motions to throw out or reduce the jury’s verdict. He also wrote the judgment should not be issued “for any reason other than a determination of the merits.”
Greenpeace International will file a more detailed response to Energy Transfer’s motion on Aug. 5, Caplow wrote.
Gion will hear arguments on the motion on Aug. 20.
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