Greenpeace has to pay $ 660 million to a oil company for a pipeline protest, says the jury | Climate crisis news
The jury in the United States has ordered Greenpeace to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a defamation lawsuit initiated by Energy Transfer Pipeline, which has caused serious free speech care.
The environmental advocacy group announced that they would appeal in the verdict on Wednesday, which followed almost a decade after the activists joined the protest that he ran Standing rock sioux tribe against Dakota access pipelinein one of the biggest protests against fossil fuels in the history of the US.
The jury in northern Dakota has awarded more than $ 660 million damage to three Greenpeace entities, stating costs, including an offense, a disruption, a conspiracy and denying the property.
Energy transfer, a company based in Texas, worth $ 64 billion, celebrated the verdict and denied an attempt to suffocate speech.
“We want to thank the judge and jury for the incredible amount of time and effort they dedicated to this trial,” the company states.
“Although we are pleased that Greenpeace will be responsible for their actions, this victory is indeed for people of mandans and throughout the northern Dakota who had to live through daily harassment and disorders caused by protesters who financed Greenpeace and trained.”
The jury with nine people in Mandan, North Dakota, considered two days, in the trial that began at the end of February, before finding the transfer of energy in most points.
However, a group of lawyers who supervised the case, calling themselves a committee to monitor the trial, said many jurors had to do with the fossil fuel industry.
“Most jurors in this case have to do with the oil and gas industry, and some have openly admitted that they cannot be impartial, although the judge still sat them,” the statement said in a statement after the jury selection.
Greenpeace plans to appeal the verdict. Greenpeace International is also opposed to the transmission of energy in the Netherlands, accusing the company of using lawsuits for uncomfortable for combating disagreements. The hearing in this case was set for July 2.
“The fight against Big oil is not over today,” said Greenpeace General Councilor Kristin Casper.
“We know that the law and the truth are on our side.”
‘Water protectors’ of a standing rock
The Energy transfer case against Greenpeace dates from the protest in northern Dakota almost 10 years ago.
In April 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe Set the protest camp Along the proposed pipeline of Dakota Access to stop the construction, calling “Water protectors”.
The camp continued for over a year, at first supporting from other natives across the country and later other activists, including environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and even even Hundreds of veterans of the US army.
Even while set winter conditions and hundreds of police patrolled with protests with waves of violent arrests that are also Target journalistsSioux and their supporters remained in place.
According to Energy Transy Directors Trey Cox, the role of Greenpeace included the “exploitation” of the Standing rock Sioux tribe to improve its anti-fossil fuel program, the northern Dakota monitor said.
But Greenpeace claims that she played only a small and peaceful role in the movement, led by the Indians.
As one organizer of Lakota, Nick Tilsen, he testified during the trial, the idea that Greenpeace had organized protests was “paternalist”, according to Lakota Times.
Despite the protests, the pipeline, designed for the transportation of frakid raw oil to the refinery and on the global market, became an operational 2017.
The transmission of energy, however, continued his legal search for Greenpeace, initially seeking compensation of $ 300 million to the federal lawsuit, which was rejected.
He then transferred his legal strategy to the state courts of North Dakota, one of the minorities of US states without protection against so -called “strategic lawsuits against participation in the public” (SLAPP).
‘Drill, a baby drill’
The judgment on Wednesday is another victory for the fossil fuel industry, as President Donald Trump promises to open the US to spread fossil fuels, with his slogan campaign “Drill, Baby Acrill”, including by Elimination of air and water protection.
Through years of legal struggle, executive director of billionaire Energy transfer Kelcy Warren, the main Trump donor, was often honest because of his motivations.
His “primary goal” in a lawsuit of Greenpeace, he said in interviews, is not only a financial fee but also “send a message”.
Warren went so far as to say that activists “should be removed from the gene pool”.
The critics called the case textbook SLAPP, designed to silence and exhaust the financial resources.
It comes that Trump’s administration also wants to establish a broader suppression of freedom of expression throughout the country.
In a post on Bluesky, who responded to the verdict on Wednesday, the author and journalist Naomi Klein noted that “attacks on protest and freedom” that affects different movements, including “climate, Palestine, work, migrant, trance and reproductive rights” should be seen as connected.
“Fossil fuel companies should be forced to pay public trillion damage to planetary fire costs,” Klein added.
Meanwhile, climate change already contributes to the increasingly intersive and frequent disaster in the USA worldwide, including Recent fires in Californiaand an unprecedented hurricane in the interior In North Carolina.
The Standing rock Sioux tribe filed a new lawsuit last October against the American Army engineering corpus, which is responsible for the part of the standing rock reservation, claiming that the pipeline acts illegally and must be extinguished, according to the North Dakota monitor.
