Even before a North Dakota jury handed down a $345 million civil verdict against Greenpeace for its conduct around the Dakota Access Pipeline, the campaign group did something telling. Rather than appeal in the United States, where the trial took place, it filed a parallel suit in the Netherlands and asked a Dutch court to declare the entire American proceeding an “abusive” prosecution under the EU’s anti-SLAPP Directive.
An Amsterdam court heard arguments on April 16, with a ruling expected by June 3. In practice, the case asks a European judge to function as an appellate reviewer of an American jury trial. If Brussels tolerates it, the consequences will not stop at the Atlantic shoreline, and it will come back to haunt European consumers and industries.
The North Dakota case was not about climate speech. After a three-week trial, a nine-member jury found Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace Fund liable for defamation, trespass, tortious interference and civil conspiracy during the Standing Rock protests. The damages presented at trial included over $60 million in additional security costs, $80 million in delayed pipeline operations, and $96 million in refinancing costs after Greenpeace’s pressure campaign cost the operator its banking relationships. Pipeline pumps were vandalised. Hydraulic hoses were cut. Bulldozers were set on fire. None of that is protected speech under any honest reading of European or American law. They went too far and that has no defense in a court of any stripe.
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