Greenpeace has started a lawsuit against the American company Energy Transfer. The environmental organization has to pay the energy company a fine of over half a billion euros. Greenpeace considers this intimidation and is challenging the fine in court. Does the environmental club have a chance?
On the square in front of the courthouse in Amsterdam South, Greenpeace summoned a group of journalists on Wednesday morning for a press conference. An hour later, the first preliminary hearing will begin in the case against the large American energy concern Energy Transfer.
The environmental club is ready. “We have never been stopped before,” says Mads Christensen, director of Greenpeace International. “Not by legal threats, arrests, or even bombs.”
A step back in time: in March of this year, an American judge in the state of North Dakota imposed the fine on Greenpeace after Energy Transfer filed a case. According to the energy company, Greenpeace played an important role in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and demanded compensation. Earlier, Energy Transfer had lost a case against the environmental organization in a federal court in the United States.
Environmental activists protested for months in 2016 against the construction of the pipeline, which would be placed in a nature reserve in the Standing Rock Reservation. This would endanger water supplies for the original inhabitants. Greenpeace distributed sleeping bags, collected money, and signed an open letter with hundreds of NGOs against the construction.
Deterring with damage claims
Because Greenpeace International is based in the Netherlands, the environmental organization can go to court here to challenge the American ruling. Moreover, since 2024, there has been a law in Europe that protects organizations and individuals against ‘strategic lawsuits’.
These cases are called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). According to Greenpeace, this case is a prime example of a SLAPP, intended to silence the environmental club. In Europe, there have been as many as 1,049 SLAPPs since 2010.
“Such cases are used to deter and bully parties and individuals through a process,” says climate lawyer Tim Bleeker. Often, large damage claims are threatened, causing a person or organization to think twice before voicing criticism again.
Jasper Teulings of Climate Litigation Network, the legal climate organization of Urgenda, also sees this. “People who expose abuses are saddled with costs.” The target is usually NGOs, journalists, whistleblowers, trade unions, and even bloggers.
Teulings mentions the example of Follow This. The shareholder collective was sued by ExxonMobil because it had submitted a climate resolution at a shareholder meeting. Follow This decided to withdraw the resolution because it was not financially and legally up to the oil company. Subsequently, Exxon withdrew the case again.
Thanks to the new European anti-SLAPP law, people or organizations that are sued can ask the court for compensation or for the case to be dismissed, Teulings knows.
Case is ‘politically sensitive issue’
Greenpeace is one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, so it naturally has more resources than a concerned citizen. But the damage claim imposed by the American judge is “extremely high,” says Justin Lindeboom, associate professor of European Law at the RUG. The amount of such a claim is also immediately a characteristic of a SLAPP, according to Lindeboom. That can work in Greenpeace’s favor.
Does the environmental club have a chance? Experts think so, although it remains difficult to predict when something is the first time. But Lindeboom thinks that the combination of the mega-fine and the fact that Energy Transfer’s case was previously rejected by a federal judge in the US could be beneficial for Greenpeace.
Lindeboom does add a caveat: “This concerns a ruling by a court in a sovereign country (the US, ed.).” Not recognizing that as a Dutch judge is, according to him, “politically and legally quite sensitive”.
The laws of the schoolyard
If the judge does not rule in favor of Greenpeace, that could mean the end of the organization, according to Teulings. “660 million is existential for Greenpeace; a gigantic blow,” he says. “If you don’t fight back against a bully, the laws of the schoolyard apply.”
Greenpeace director Christensen is optimistic about the process: “We have no intention of paying even one cent,” he says. When asked whether Greenpeace is financially able to fight this battle, the director replies: “There are countless ways to challenge the verdict, and we will find the means to do so. It is not an option for us not to do it.”
Energy Transfer has not yet given a reaction to NU.nl. Shortly after the American ruling in March, the company wrote in a statement: “This is a victory for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”