Greenpeace can go bankrupt. Must pay $ 667 million in damages

By decision of the court bench at Mandan in Dakota Northern Greenpeace, he was obliged to pay nearly 667 million dollars (equivalent of over PLN 2.5 billion) compensation to Energy Transfer, an enterprise dealing with transporting oil pipelines and natural gas. In 2019, it sued the organization in connection with the role she was supposed to play in protests against construction through Energy Transfer of the Pipeline called Dakota Access.

According to the claim, Greenpeace was to conduct protests, work for the illegal disturbance of the construction of investments and distribute false information about Dakota Access. After a two -day meeting on Wednesday, the court found the guilty greenpeace and awarded the payment of huge compensation to the energy company.

However, the organization undermines the legitimacy of the judgment and announces an appeal. She maintains that her involvement in protests was small and took place at the request of the standing rock tribe. This tribe openly declares that it led protests against Dakot Access.

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– We are an organization that works to defend rights. Our activities rely on peaceful protests – emphasizes in an interview with the Reuters Deep Padmanabha agency, Greenpeace lawyer. – We should all worry about the future of the first amendment and lawsuits such as those whose goal is to destroy our rights to peaceful protests and freedom of speech. Greenpeace will continue to do its part to fight for the protection of these basic rights for everyone – she added.

Padmanabha is not the only person who is afraid of the influence that Wednesday's judgment may have the possibilities of civil objection in the USA in the future. Experts agree to the possibility of so -called chilling effect, under which organizations and social groups will be afraid of protest due to the possibility of finding the defendants and held financially. Greenpeace himself admits that if his appeal fails and he is forced to pay this compensation, he can go bankrupt.

Trey Cox, an energy lawyer, in turn, argues that “brutal and destructive” protests did not fall within the part of legally protected freedom of expression. Protests were conducted between April 2016 and February 2017. A few months later, the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline was completed. Currently, it is transported about 5 percent of the daytime oil production in the USA. The creation of the investments was mainly opposed to the tribes of native Americans, which were afraid of contaminating local water sources and deepening climate change.