The North Dakota District Court denied the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) developers’ request for an anti-suit injunction prohibiting Greenpeace International (GPI) from proceeding with an action against the developers in the Netherlands under the European Union’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) directive. A District Court jury found in March 2025 that GPI and other Greenpeace defendants were liable for almost $667 million in compensatory and exemplary damages to the developers for actions related to DAPL protests. In its order denying the anti-suit injunction, the court found that the threshold considerations for an injunction were not satisfied. Although the parties in the North Dakota and Dutch case were the same, the court found that the issues were different since the Dutch case involved defamation allegations by GPI against the developers and since North Dakota does not recognize a SLAPP or anti-SLAPP action. The court also found that the Dutch action’s frustration of a policy in the North Dakota court was “not a certainty” and declined to find that the Dutch action was vexatious or that it threatened North Dakota courts’ in rem jurisdiction or prejudiced equitable considerations in the developers’ North Dakota lawsuit. The court also concluded that the issue of comity did not apply because GPI’s SLAPP and defamation claims were not pending before the North Dakota court. 

Lawsuit by the developers of the Dakota Access Pipeline seeking damages from organizations and individuals who protested the pipeline.

Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International

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North Dakota Trial Court Denied Dakota Access Pipeline Developers’ Request to Block Greenpeace International’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Lawsuit

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United States of America

North Dakota

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North Dakota Trial Court Denied Dakota Access Pipeline Developers’ Request to Block Greenpeace International’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Lawsuit

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