Judge says Greenpeace will have to pay $345 million over pipeline protest

Nearly a year after a nine-person jury found Greenpeace liable for $667 million in damages in a case related to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a North Dakota judge has said the environmental organization will soon be ordered to make good on the damages.In court papers filed Tuesday, Judge James Gion granted a motion filed by Energy Transfer, the company that owns the pipeline, and said he intends to issue the final judgment on the case soon.
The final judgment will detail what the three Greenpeace entities named in the lawsuit are expected to pay, but the amounts were not included in Tuesday’s filings. Gion did, however, reduce Greenpeace’s total liability after the jury’s verdict to $345 million.
Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2019 for its involvement in a massive, months-long and sometimes violent protest against its Dakota Access Pipeline, which was installed in 2016 and 2017. The nearly 1,200-mile crude oil pipeline crosses the Missouri River upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and protesters said the pipeline would threaten the tribe’s water supply and destroy important cultural sites.
Energy Transfer has at least partly blamed Greenpeace and its public support of the protest for why the protest ultimately ballooned in size, as it began with just a small group of Sioux people. People traveled from all over the world to camp and protest at the site, with various reports estimating there were as many as 10,000 people there at one time.
Greenpeace sent six employees to the camp who participated in protests, led trainings or otherwise lent support to the cause. It also donated money and supplies and supported the project’s debanking by several lenders.
The case went to trial in 2025, and a jury found Greenpeace liable on all claims Energy Transfer brought against it including defamation, tortious interference, conspiracy, trespass and nuisance. Greenpeace maintains, despite the jury’s verdict, that it is and always has been committed to nonviolence and that Energy Transfer has never proved that Greenpeace employees orchestrated or participated in violence or property damage.
Greenpeace has said it cannot afford to pay the amount last determined by the judge.
Both sides have said they will appeal the judgment.

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