The company that won a huge verdict against Greenpeace earlier this year has asked a North Dakota court to block a countersuit in the Netherlands.
The yearslong court battle over a controversial pipeline — a fight so aggressive, it’s threatening to bankrupt Greenpeace USA — has taken a strange legal twist.
Energy Transfer, the company that won a nearly $670 million judgment against Greenpeace earlier this year over protests against its Dakota Access Pipeline, is mounting a full-court press with its latest strategy. The pipeline company and its allies are exhorting North Dakota’s Supreme Court to block a countersuit from an international branch of Greenpeace in the Netherlands.
In other words, Energy Transfer is asking judges in North Dakota to stop a lawsuit filed under the laws of a different country. The details of its efforts at the state’s Supreme Court haven’t been previously reported.
The strategy is unusual, but not unheard-of.
George A. Bermann, a professor at Columbia Law School and expert on transnational litigation, said that courts generally issue international injunctions like this only sparingly because they are seen as interfering with foreign courts.
If the North Dakota court did issue one, enforcing it would be another matter, he said, because of the messy questions about jurisdiction.
Greenpeace International, were it to defy such an order, might face a contempt ruling by a North Dakota court. But if Greenpeace International has no presence in North Dakota, it could be difficult for the court to collect, he said.