The announcement wasn’t good for environmental group Greenpeace over its pipeline protests dating back to 2016 bin North Dakota.
A judge in Bismarck has said he plans to order Greenpeace to pay damages expected to total $345 million in the lawsuit won by the owners of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The Associated Press reported that Judge James Gion filed papers in court indicating he will sign the order to force several Greenpeace entities to pay the judgment to Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based company that owns Dakota Access. He set that amount at $345 million last year in a decision that reduced a jury’s damages by about half, but his latest filing didn’t specify a final amount.
The judge’s filing came after a nine-person jury last year found Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. liable for defamation and other claims brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access.
The lawsuit stems from the pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017, when thousands of people demonstrated and camped near the project’s Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a threat to its water supply.
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