jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.

Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had sued Greenpeace, alleging defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017, claiming the organization “incited” people to protest by using a “misinformation campaign”.

Greenpeace, which had denied the claims, said in a statement after the verdict that lawsuits like this were aimed at “destroying the right to peaceful protest”; constitutional rights experts had expressed fears that the case could have a wider chilling effect on free speech.

The nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota, found in favor of Energy Transfer on most counts after more than two days of deliberations. It awarded Energy Transfer at least $660m, according to calculations from Greenpeace.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/greenpeace-lawsuit-energy-transfer-dakota-pipeline