Political campaigning seems to be increasingly conducted through the court room. Last week, Greenpeace and the American company Energy Transfer faced off in an Amsterdam court. The environmental NGO is attempting to challenge a US court ruling ordering it to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the organisation, this could lead to its bankruptcy.
In February, a judge in North Dakota ordered the NGO to pay $345 million to Energy Transfer, the American company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline. This is a 1,900-kilometre-long pipeline that Energy Transfer laid just one kilometre from indigenous territory.
Greenpeace was found guilty of defamation, sabotage, trespassing and deliberately interfering with the business operations. The verdict followed a ruling in October 2025, in which a judge reduced the $667 million in damages awarded to Energy Transfer by a jury in 2025 by almost half.
Despite this series of legal defeats, Greenpeace continues to maintain that it did nothing more than organise a petition together with a few hundred other organisations. That would hardly be in keeping with its usual style. In 2023, the NGO openly threatened to use violence in the Netherlands. Together with the fanatics of “Extinction Rebellion Netherlands”, it then issued an “ultimatum” to Rabobank, whereby it publicly stated: “Stop financing industrial agriculture and compensate for the damage caused. If Rabobank does not agree within 15 days, branch closures will follow across the country.”
Is er ondertussen als iemand van Greenpeace Nederland opgepakt? @Het_OM https://t.co/w4n6NYHH4y
— Pieter Cleppe (@pietercleppe) September 26, 2023
Not clearly a case of “SLAPP”
Greenpeace is therefore now seeking to challenge the decision of a US jury and various American courts in the Netherlands, based on new European Union legislation from 2024, which aims to curb frivolous lawsuits intended to intimidate civil protest. A hearing on this matter took place in Amsterdam on 16 April.
Greenpeace reportedly is the first organisation to make use of the so-called EU SLAPP directive, which stands for “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”.
In the coming weeks, the Dutch court will now examine whether it has jurisdiction to rule on this matter, which should become clear on 3 June. According to Justin Lindeboom, associate professor of European Law at the University of Groningen, it is important that this concerns “a ruling by a court in a sovereign country.” Failing to recognise this as a Dutch judge, he argues, is “politically and legally quite sensitive.”
Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, warns that if Greenpeace gets its way in the Netherlands, this would effectively amount to “European courts to nullify verdicts of American juries and American judges.”
Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether Greenpeace can invoke the EU directive. Frivolous “SLAPP” lawsuits intended to intimidate are indeed a problem, but Greenpeace has been on the losing side here. Whether Greenpeace is in a financially weak position is, incidentally, also disputed by the opposing party’s lawyer. He claims that the NGO still would have had “a hundred million” in its account last year.
Subsidised NGOs under pressure?
At the EU policy level, NGOs are not exactly the weaker party. Last year, a scandal erupted in Brussels revealing that the European Commission had been funding an entire ecosystem of NGOs for years, partly to lobby for initiatives such as the Green Deal. The amount involved is at least 7 billion euros.
In June 2025, the European Parliament voted to establish a special working group to investigate and oversee the funding of NGOs. The European Commission has already admitted that these organisations had engaged in “undue lobbying activities” financed by EU funds, particularly from the so-called LIFE programme. All this took place during the previous term of the European Commission, with Dutch EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans as Vice-President and a key driving force behind the Green Deal.
Tevreden! 🍀💪🏻
We hebben als @BBB_EUropa dankzij EVP-fractie een speciale EP-werkgroep voor onderzoek én toezicht op financiering #NGO's veiliggesteld, naar aanleiding van het groene lobbyschandaal.
Nu gebruik maken van alle onderzoeksbevoegdheden binnen @EP_BudgControl.
— Sander Smit, MEP ن 🍀 (@sandersmitwzn) June 19, 2025
Furthermore, German newspaper Die Welt revealed that “non-governmental organisations were required, in exchange for funding, to lobby and, for example, campaign against coal-fired power stations, pesticides and the free trade agreement between Europe and South America (Mercosur).” This was whilst the European Commission was, in the meantime, attempting to finally conclude that trade agreement with the Latin American trade bloc Mercosur.
Earlier in 2026, Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink (NSC) pointed out that the European Commission funds NGOs that even start legal proceedings against EU Member States. In other words, organisations that effectively constitute an extension of the European Commission are challenging democratically elected national governments. This goes counter the idea that the European Commission is supposed to serve EU Member States, as a modest civil service focused on implementing the provisions of the EU Treaties.
The problem not even lies as much with the NGOs themselves but with the European Commission, which appears to have gotten completely out of control. Recently, Charles Michel, former Belgian Prime Minister and former President of the European Council, also levelled strong criticism at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on this matter. He complained: “She is supposed to defend the single market. Nothing has been done. She is supposed to advance financial markets. Nothing has been done.”
At the same time, Michel accuses her of pursuing “authoritarian governance”. With the help of an army of NGOs, one may add.
