Closing arguments set to begin in pipeline company's lawsuit against Greenpeace

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled to statesman connected Monday successful a pipeline company's suit against Greenpeace, a lawsuit the biology advocacy radical said could person consequences for escaped code and protestation rights and endanger the organization's future.

The assemblage volition deliberate aft the closing arguments and assemblage instructions. Nine jurors and 2 alternates person heard the case.

North Dakota District Court Judge James Gion told the assemblage past period erstwhile the proceedings began, “You are the judges of each questions of information successful this case,” and to “base your verdict connected the evidence.”

Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access alleged defamation, trespass, nuisance and different offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, its American subdivision Greenpeace USA, and backing limb Greenpeace Fund Inc. The pipeline institution is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars successful damages.

The suit stems from protests successful 2016 and 2017 of the arguable Dakota Access Pipeline and its Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation. The people for years has opposed the pipeline arsenic a hazard to its h2o supply. The pipeline has transported lipid since mid-2017.

Trey Cox, an lawyer for the pipeline company, antecedently said Greenpeace “planned, organized and funded a crippled program to halt construction” of the pipeline, “whatever the cost.”

Cox besides alleged Greenpeace paid outsiders to travel into the country to protest, sent blockade supplies, organized oregon led protester trainings, passed “critical intel” to the protesters and told untrue statements to halt the enactment from being built.

He said a missive signed by leaders of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA and sent to Energy Transfer's banks contained an allegedly defamatory connection that the institution desecrated burial grounds and culturally important sites during construction.

Greenpeace's “deceptive communicative frightened disconnected lenders” and the institution mislaid fractional its banks, Cox said.

Attorneys for the Greenpeace entities denied the allegations, saying determination is nary evidence, they had small oregon nary engagement with the protests and the missive was signed by hundreds of organizations from dozens of countries, with nary fiscal instauration to attest the enactment received, work oregon was influenced by the letter.

Greenpeace representatives person said the suit is an illustration of corporations abusing the ineligible strategy to spell aft critics and is simply a captious trial of escaped code and protestation rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the lawsuit is astir Greenpeace not pursuing the law, not escaped speech.