{"id":12743,"date":"2017-08-22T14:30:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T22:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/dakota-access-pipeline-owner-sues-greenpeace-for-criminal-activity\/"},"modified":"2017-08-22T14:30:16","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T22:30:16","slug":"dakota-access-pipeline-owner-sues-greenpeace-for-criminal-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/dakota-access-pipeline-owner-sues-greenpeace-for-criminal-activity\/","title":{"rendered":"Dakota Access Pipeline Owner Sues Greenpeace For 'Criminal Activity'"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Colin Dwyer<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Greenpeace activists hang a banner from the rafters at a bank shareholders’ meeting earlier this year in Zurich, calling for it to “STOP DIRTY PIPELINE DEALS!” Also on the banner are hashtags supporting Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.<\/p>\n

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Michael Buholzer\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Michael Buholzer\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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The developer behind the Dakota Access Pipeline<\/a>, which for months drew thousands of protesters<\/a>, has sued Greenpeace and several other environmental groups for their role in delaying the pipeline’s construction. In the racketeering lawsuit<\/a> it filed in federal court Tuesday, Energy Transfer Partners<\/a> alleges these groups inflicted “billions of dollars in damage” with their “criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation” against the pipeline.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace <\/a>led a “network of putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups” \u2014 including Earth First!<\/a> and BankTrack<\/a>, who are also defendants \u2014 which disseminated false claims about the pipeline’s impact on the environment and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s sacred sites, alleges the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Energy Transfer says the environmental groups, which together it refers to as “the Enterprise,” engaged in racketeering and defamation that ended up increasing the cost of construction by at least $300 million. But the developer \u2014 represented by a law firm<\/a> whose managing partner is Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s personal attorney \u2014 notes the “full extent of damage” must be determined at trial with a jury.<\/p>\n

“This is the second consecutive year Donald Trump’s go-to attorneys at the Kasowitz law firm have filed a meritless lawsuit against Greenpeace,” Greenpeace USA General Counsel Tom Wetterer responded in a statement, referring to a similar 2016 lawsuit<\/a> filed against Greenpeace by Resolute Forest Products<\/a>.<\/p>\n