A pivotal trial over the embattled Dakota Access Pipeline opens today that could have grave consequences for protests in the US and the future of the environmental group Greenpeace.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and more than 500 other tribes protested the development of the pipeline alongside demonstrators who joined from across the US nearly a decade ago. Legal battles are still in motion, even after oil started flowing through the pipeline that runs from North Dakota to Illinois in 2017.

The company that operates Dakota Access, Energy Transfers, is suing Greenpeace for $300 million in a lawsuit that goes on trial this week. Energy Transfers claims that Greenpeace supported protesters’ “unlawful acts of trespass†and property destruction to stop construction. It also alleges that the organization spread false information about the company and concerns about the pipeline’s impact on the environment and cultural sites to the public and to banks financing the project.

Paying that amount in damages would be equivalent to about 10 times Greenpeace USA’s annual budget, according to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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