Greenpeace’s Dutch Runaround Risks Undermining US-EU Energy Pact

Cross-border legal cooperation rests on the fragile but essential principle that sovereign nations will respect each other’s lawful judgments. Without that understanding, the global legal system begins to fracture, commerce stalls, treaties lose meaning, and trust erodes.

Now, that principle faces a quiet but consequential test in a courtroom in The Hague.

Greenpeace International has filed a lawsuit in The Netherlands to overturn a $660 million US verdict. On Oct. 28, the trial judge reduced the award to $345 million, but it still remains one of the largest awards for interference with infrastructure in US history.

A North Dakota jury had found the organization liable for defamation, trespass, and civil conspiracy during its campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline. If the Dutch courts agree, they could refuse to enforce the US ruling, not only invalidating a duly rendered civil verdict, but also casting doubt on whether European courts will honor US legal decisions at all.

The Morton County jury determined that Greenpeace paid outside protestors, coordinated their encampments, and spread false claims about pipeline safety—actions that interfered with construction, escalated costs, and ultimately depressed the stock value of developer Energy Transfer.

Greenpeace is invoking Europe’s Anti-SLAPP Directive, claiming the North Dakota case was a “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” Designed to protect civic actors from abusive litigation, the directive could be misapplied here to shield unlawful conduct.

The resulting uncertainty would send a chilling message to US companies operating in Europe and threaten the stability of major trade agreements—most notably the $750 billion US–EU energy pact through which Europe has committed to importing American liquefied natural gas. That deal is more than economic—it’s a strategic realignment designed to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy and strengthen transatlantic ties.

At its core, this case is a test of international comity—the principle that nations should respect each other’s legal decisions. Comity is defined as “a doctrine of deference grounded in respect for the sovereignty and competence of foreign legal systems.” It doesn’t mean blind endorsement, but it does require trust that lawful decisions rendered abroad will be honored unless they violate core principles of justice.

The Dutch, of all people, should know this. If this same US judgment had come before Dutch courts through the Hague Judgments Convention, recognition almost certainly would follow. The Convention—and Dutch private international law by analogy—permits refusal only on narrow grounds such as lack of jurisdiction, due process defects, or manifest conflict with public policy. None apply here.

To let Greenpeace achieve indirectly, through a collateral Dutch lawsuit, what it couldn’t achieve under the HJC would be to weaponize procedure against comity itself. The Convention exists to “preserve the foreign judgment … out of respect for the sovereignty of states as well as international comity.” Dutch courts shouldn’t allow Greenpeace to nullify a lawful US verdict by the back door.

Ulrich Huber, a 17th-century Dutch jurist, developed the concept of comitas gentium—the civility of nations—as the foundation of private international law. Huber argued that foreign judgments should be honored unless doing so would undermine state sovereignty or citizens’ rights. Nothing about the North Dakota verdict meets that exception.

The jurists followed due process, applied US state law to actions that occurred entirely on US soil, and determined that Greenpeace’s actions crossed the line from protected speech into unlawful interference. For a European court to discard that result under the banner of public participation would politicize transatlantic judicial cooperation and undermine centuries of legal tradition.

US anti-SLAPP statutes protect expressive dissent, but not trespass, defamation, civil conspiracy, or sabotage. The jury concluded that Greenpeace knowingly engaged in coordinated actions that disrupted pipeline construction, misrepresented facts to the public, and caused substantial financial harm.

In other words, the organization didn’t merely engage in peaceful protest—it interfered with lawful operations, a violation that courts treat as civil and potentially criminally actionable.

The practical consequences of ignoring that line are profound.

Undermining the enforcement of this judgment would jeopardize US legal authority as well as Europe’s energy security, which relies on a steady supply of LNG exports from the US.

Companies trading or investing across the Atlantic may hesitate to back such projects if they can’t rely on US court judgments. Moreover, allowing Dutch courts to overrule a US jury risks emboldening activists who see litigation in foreign courts as a tool to bypass democratic governance.

Europe and the US aim to present a united front on energy, technology, and global security. If Dutch judges selectively refuse to enforce US rulings, that unity erodes. At the end of the day, this case is bigger than Greenpeace. It is about whether Europe stands as a reliable partner or a selective ally willing to politicize legal decisions.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Charles B. Meyer is the principal attorney at the Law Firm of Chuck Meyer, PLLC, in The Woodlands, Texas, and previously was European general counsel and chief legal officer at BlackBerry.

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