Supermajor Shell has settled its multimillion-dollar lawsuit against environmental group Greenpeace for boarding an oil rig early last year during one of the group’s protests.
Shell initially sued Greenpeace for $2.1m in damages but, according to the environmentalist group, demanded only $1m in damages and planned to spend another $10m in legal fees, which Greenpeace would have had to pay if it lost the case. Greenpeace said that such a financial hit would have been ‘one of the biggest threats’ in its 45-year history.
As part of the final settlement, Greenpeace will accept no liability and pay nothing to Shell. However, the group will donate £300,000 ($383,000) to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Greenpeace also had to sign a legally binding commitment with Shell UK and the high court that prohibits the group from carrying out similar actions at or near key oil and gas platforms in the North Sea for five to 10 years.
The environmental group stated the four sites are mostly declining fields and that they had no plans to take direct action there. Greenpeace added that it would continue to campaign against Shell including in the North Sea.
Shell was satisfied with the outcome as the money would go to a charity working on safety at sea. A Shell spokesperson told UK media that that the right to protest had never been an issue for the company and that in this case, it was about an illegal boarding which a high court judge described as ‘putting their lives and, indirectly, the lives of the crew at risk’.
Greenpeace believes that the lawsuit was nothing but ‘intimidation’ and was a so-called strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), a tool used by large corporations to silence protestors and critics.
For context, four activists from the UK, Turkey, the US, and Argentina climbed onto the 52,000-tonne heavy-lift vessel White Marlin just north of the Canary Islands in January 2023 and occupied it for 13 days.
The protesters reached the heavy-lift vessel in three inflatable boats launched from Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship. They used ropes to climb onto the deck and then occupied the Shell-operated cylindrical Penguin FPSO platform, carried on the back of the vessel.
The FPSO was being transported over 12,000 nautical miles to work on the Penguins oil and gas field, which sits 240 km off the Shetland Islands. It was also set to be used to unlock eight new wells in the field.
