Jury Finds Greenpeace Liable for Hundreds of Millions in Damages

A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against its Dakota Access Pipeline.

The verdict was a major blow to the storied environmental organization. Greenpeace had maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It had portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil-industry critics, but a jury apparently disagreed.

The nine-person jury in the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, N.D., about 45 minutes north of where the protests took place, returned the verdict after roughly two days of deliberating.

Energy Transfer’s co-founder and board chairman, Kelcy Warren, an ally and donor to President Trump, had been outspoken in his criticism of the protesters and had the last word during plaintiffs’ closing arguments on Monday, when his lawyers played comments he made in a video deposition for the jurors.

“We’ve got to stand up for ourselves,” Mr. Warren said, arguing that protesters had created “a total false narrative” about his company. “It was time to fight back.”

Energy Transfer is one of the largest pipeline companies in the country. The protests over its construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline drew national attention and thousands of people to monthslong encampments in 2016 and 2017.