Dutch Court Lets Greenpeace Anti-SLAPP Suit Against Energy Transfer Proceed
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- Amsterdam District Court on June 3 rejected Energy Transfer's motion to dismiss Greenpeace International's anti-SLAPP suit, refused to pause the case pending the North Dakota outcome, and denied Energy Transfer's request to appeal before a merits hearing.
- Greenpeace International filed the Dutch case in February 2025 — just before the North Dakota trial — alleging Energy Transfer's U.S. litigation was a baseless effort to silence its advocacy and citing a dismissed federal racketeering claim.
- The court found the EU's 2024 anti-SLAPP directive inapplicable because the Netherlands has not yet implemented it through national law, and Energy Transfer seized on that point, calling the ruling "an important victory" and "a significant legal determination."
- In the parallel North Dakota track, a Morton County jury in March 2025 awarded Energy Transfer nearly $667 million over the 2016–2017 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, later cut to $345 million — about $65 million of which would fall on Greenpeace International.
- Greenpeace has filed a motion for a new trial and plans to appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court if denied; Vermont Law emeritus professor Patrick Parenteau told Inside Climate News the transatlantic dispute raises "uncharted territory" questions about potentially conflicting rulings.
Why it matters: The ruling gives Greenpeace a live forum to challenge a $345 million U.S. judgment as a SLAPP — with roughly $65 million of that exposure sitting on Greenpeace International's books specifically — while Energy Transfer retains leverage from the court's rejection of the EU directive as the operative legal framework. Both sides are now racing the other in separate countries, and Parenteau's flagged risk of conflicting judgments means whichever court resolves first could shape how fossil-fuel companies and protest groups litigate across borders going forward.
