Greenpeace backed radical protesters who tried to block a North Dakota pipeline. Now the pipeline company has won huge damages in a lawsuit against the iconic NGO. Other nonprofits should take notice.
On Wednesday, a jury in Mandan, North Dakota returned a stunning verdict against Greenpeace for its role in the violent protests and misleading PR campaign that disrupted construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. The jury hearing the civil lawsuit found Greenpeace USA and two other Greenpeace entities liable for civil conspiracy, defamation, trespass, and other misdeeds. If the verdict stands, the storied environmental nonprofit will have to pay $667 million in damages to plaintiff Energy Transfer, the pipeline company that built and owns the DAPL.
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The decision wasn’t entirely unexpected. In fact, Greenpeace had tried (and failed) to get the trial location changed, asserting that a jury in that oil-producing region would be biased in favor of the plaintiff. Nonetheless, the sheer size of the damages awarded will send shock waves through the loose networks of nonprofit groups that support disruptive protests around the nation.
In a City Journal article about the case, I noted similarities between the anti-pipeline protests near North Dakota’s Standing Rock Indian Reservation and other mass actions, including Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the anti-Israel demonstrations that erupted around the United States after the October 7 attacks. Making an analogy to hybrid warfare, I described these as “hybrid protests,” in which masses of peaceful demonstrators are joined by smaller groups of trained agitators who tip the events toward violence. As Park MacDougald has reported, these loose networks of troublemakers are often financially supported “by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups.”
Energy Transfer’s suit against Greenpeace represents the first major success in exposing and penalizing the putatively legitimate nonprofits that funnel money and material support to the lawbreakers embedding themselves in these hybrid protests. If the enormous verdict survives the inevitable appeals, it will be a major shot across the bows of progressive organizations that quietly foment political mayhem while maintaining plausible deniability.
Many hybrid protests begin spontaneously as local people gather to demonstrate against a perceived injustice. But soon, outside activists—including trained Antifa-style agitators—begin flooding in. When police made arrests at various pro-Hamas campus uprisings, for example, they found that roughly half the arrestees had no connection to the schools they were occupying. These activists have the funds to travel long distances for extended periods and often arrive with specialized equipment for blocking roads, occupying structures, or fighting police. Some, like the lifelong activist Lisa Fithian, whom the New York Times observed leading the takeover of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, describe themselves as “trainers” teaching supposedly nonviolent tactics to neophyte protesters.
Energy Transfer’s civil lawsuit alleged that something similar took place at Standing Rock. Greenpeace maintains that the protest was led by local Native American activists and that the environmental group merely offered incidental support. The group is correct that the conflict began when the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe began protesting the pipeline being built close to its reservation. But, as a firsthand report in Outside detailed, before long outsiders—most of them white—began dominating the gathering. While local Sioux leaders struggled to keep the protests peaceful, many of the newcomers began blockading roads, torching heavy equipment, and battling with police.
During the trial, Energy Transfer’s lawyers presented evidence that Greenpeace played a significant role in supporting the activists pushing for “direct action” against the pipeline. Greenpeace USA paid roughly $20,000 to send protest trainers—including a Greenpeace employee—to Standing Rock, court documents showed, while the group’s executive director personally raised another $90,000 for the effort. One internal Greenpeace email estimated the funding “has the potential to provide skills training to 3,000 activists.” Another Greenpeace employee bragged in an email about doing “some awesome spy shit” while scouting for potential blockade locations near the construction site.
Greenpeace also supplied power tools, propane, tents, cold-weather gear, and a van equipped with solar panels. Energy Transfer’s lawyers particularly focused on the 20 to 30 “lockboxes” Greenpeace delivered to the Standing Rock occupation. A lockbox—sometimes known as a “sleeping dragon”—is a sophisticated device that allows activists to chain themselves to heavy equipment or to each other while forming human blockades. They consist of heavy PVC or concrete tubes into which activists can lock their arms, making it impossible for police to separate or move them without special equipment. The lockboxes proved a major headache for law enforcement officers trying to remove protesters from highways and construction sites. One photo displayed at the trial showed a Greenpeace-paid trainer using a lockbox. When then-Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard received a text showing another demonstrator employing the device, she responded approvingly that the action “ups the ante.” Asked to explain that phrase in court, Leonard compared the protester with anti-segregation activist Rosa Parks.
The North Dakota jury also supported Energy Transfer’s claims that Greenpeace defamed the company in its public statements about the project and illegally interfered with the company’s relationship with financial institutions. Greenpeace maintains that its actions supporting protesters and its claims regarding Energy Transfer all fall under the First Amendment. “We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech,” Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA, told the Washington Post. The jury concluded, however, that trespassing and vandalism don’t constitute peaceful protest, and defamation is not free speech.
Asked for comment on the verdict, a spokesperson sent me this statement from Greenpeace USA executive director Sushma Raman: “This is the end of a chapter, but not the end of our fight. Energy Transfer knows we don’t have $660 million. They want our silence, not our money.”
Energy Transfer no doubt faces a long road before it can collect any money from Greenpeace. The NGO has already announced that it will appeal the verdict, and one of the group’s international affiliates has filed suit against the pipeline company in the Netherlands under an EU free-speech law. But Energy Transfer’s stunning court victory will have an impact that far outweighs any financial gains.
Over the decades, progressive NGOs have grown increasingly bold about funding radical organizations that support violent actions. Many of these seemingly mainstream groups rely on liberal donors who are unaware of just where their money is going. They rely on a veneer of respectability—and opaque funding channels—to shield them from lawsuits or prosecution. But for nonprofits that conduct or fund genuinely illegal behavior, the era of the untouchable NGO may be coming to an end.
Top Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images
