(The Center Square) – The long-anticipated North Dakota lawsuit between Energy Transfer and Greenpeace is winding down, with both parties resting their cases Thursday.
Energy Transfer installed the Dakota Access Pipeline from 2016-2017 but was met with opposition in North Dakota by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The pipeline would cross through land and waterways the tribe says contained sacred sites and were designated as tribal land by the Treaty of 1868.
Greenpeace supported the protests with funding and training, and Energy Transfer claims the environmental activist group was behind the protests’ growth into a demonstration large enough to attract worldwide attention and lead to vandalism and other violence. The energy company has alleged that Greenpeace interfered with private property, aided and abetted trespassing and engaged in defamation that caused multiple harmful effects to the company and its employees.
The company cites the protests as the reason for a five-month delay in the pipeline’s completion, forcing it to miss a Jan. 1, 2017, online production date that they say cost them lost profits and shareholder value. It’s suing Greenpeace for $300 million.
The lawsuit is a jury trial, beginning several weeks ago after being filed in 2019. The jury has seen testimony and depositions from the head of Greenpeace International, many higher-ups at Greenpeace USA, expert witnesses, the pipeline’s project director, direct action trainers and others.
Greenpeace finished its case with witnesses testifying that banks did not divest from the Dakota pipeline because of defamatory statements by Greenpeace but because of their own values. The final deposition was of former Energy Transfer CEO and current chairman of the board, Kelcy Lee Warren, and Carol Jean Larsen, a local woman who participated in the protests for a time and testified she witnessed no violent behavior.
The judge will instruct the jury on how to apply the law to the case and Greenpeace and Energy Transfer will give their closing arguments early next week before jurors begin deliberations.
On Wednesday, Greenpeace USA’s executive director at the time of the protests, Annie Leonard, testified that “Greenpeace has never directed a campaign encouraging violence,” and only provided training and funding to the pipeline protesters.
In cross examination, as The Center Square previously reported, lead counsel for Energy Transfer Trey Cox disputed Greenpeace’s commitment to nonviolence, asking Leonard about the organization’s involvement with lockboxes — a contentious issue throughout the trial — and some of its internal communications surrounding the protests.
Cox pulled up emails from Leonard referring to 30 lockboxes being sent to the protest, including one to the organization’s board members saying Greenpeace had played a “massive role” in the pipeline protests “since day one.”
Leonard said that she had envisioned the lockboxes being used like chain links to help the protesters form a barricade and not to lock themselves onto construction equipment, as some did.
Earlier at trial, Greenpeace employee Cy Wagoner testified, according to Legal Newsline, that Wagoner was shown a photo of individuals with lock boxes attached to the top of construction equipment to prevent pipeline workers from working. Wagoner confirmed the details in the photo, Legal Newsline reported.