Consumer Choice Center releases policy primer on activist accountability as Greenpeace seeks to escape American justice in Amsterdam
LONDON, UK and WASHINGTON, DC — On April 16, a court in Amsterdam will hear Greenpeace’s bid to use the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive to escape accountability for a coordinated defamation and sabotage campaign against a lawful energy pipeline in the United States — one that American courts have already ruled caused real, measurable harm.
The Consumer Choice Center today released a new policy primer examining how activist organizations exploit litigation as both a weapon and a shield: weaponizing courts to silence critics, then retreating to foreign jurisdictions when American juries hold them responsible.
Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, provides context:
“Greenpeace ran a campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline built on defamation and attempted sabotage, and a North Dakota jury awarded Energy Transfer more than $667 million for the damage it caused,” said Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center.
“A judge cut that to $345 million. So now Greenpeace’s answer is to haul the pipeline company to court in the Netherlands and ask the EU to declare the whole thing a ‘SLAPP suit.’ That’s not fighting for the environment. That’s escaping accountability from the verdict of a judge and jury.”
In the North Dakota verdict issued in March 2025, the jury found Greenpeace liable for trespassing on private property and damage to equipment, including vandalism of pipeline pumps, the cutting of hydraulic hoses, and setting bulldozers on fire, all of which delayed the Dakota Access Pipeline, threatened its economic viability, and put real resources, infrastructure, and people at risk.
Judge James Gion finalized the $345 million order in February 2026, broken down as roughly $149 million in on-the-ground harms, $143 million in tortious interference with business, $50 million in defamation, and $3.5 million in civil conspiracy.
Greenpeace’s answer was to file its own lawsuit in Dutch court — invoking the EU’s Anti-SLAPP Directive, a law designed to protect activists from being sued into silence by powerful corporations. The irony is hard to miss: an international organization with a nine-figure global budget, appealing to European law to void the verdict of an American jury in a case involving an American pipeline on American soil.
“The EU anti-SLAPP directive exists to protect ordinary people from being crushed by libel suits funded by governments and oligarchs,” Ossowski added. “Greenpeace wants to turn it into a shield against a $345 million judgment. European legislators should pay close attention to what their law is being used for, because nullifying this judgment risks not only future energy prices and projects in Europe, but the rule of law itself.”
The Consumer Choice Center’s policy primer documents the broader pattern: activist groups coordinating campaigns built on disputed claims, and now routing legal strategy through sympathetic foreign courts when domestic accountability bites. It’s a playbook that costs consumers directly — through delayed infrastructure, inflated energy prices, and a chilling effect on the capital investment that keeps the lights on.
Policy Recommendations from the Consumer Choice Center:
- The EU Commission should clarify the anti-SLAPP Directive’s scope to prevent its use as a tool to reverse fully adjudicated foreign verdicts, preserving the directive’s original purpose of protecting genuine civic actors from abusive suits.
- Congress should pass legislation affirming that foreign anti-SLAPP judgments that impact domestic trials cannot be recognized or enforced in U.S. courts.
- The U.S. State Department and U.S. Trade Representative should raise this case in the context of the U.S.-EU energy relationship, making clear that judicial sovereignty is a prerequisite for energy investment partnerships.
- U.S. State legislatures should enact anti-SLAPP statutes that would provide procedural protections in future cases.
The full policy primer is available at consumerchoicecenter.org.
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About the Consumer Choice Center
The Consumer Choice Center is an independent, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group championing the benefits of freedom of choice, innovation, and abundance in everyday life for consumers in over 100 countries. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Brussels, Washington, Ottawa, Brasilia, London, and Geneva.
Find out more at consumerchoicecenter.org
