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9th Circuit rejects Greenpeace request
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has rejected a request by Greenpeace that the entire court should rehear the decision in March by a panel of three 9th Circuit judges to uphold an injunction barring Greenpeace from interfering with Shell’s Arctic offshore drilling operations. After the federal District Court in Alaska imposed the injunction on Greenpeace in May 2012, the environmental activist organization appealed the District Court decision to the 9th Circuit.
But the 9th Circuit judges have been far from unanimous in their views of the injunction. The March decision upholding the injunction was a majority verdict, with one judge on the panel expressing a dissenting view. And the rehearing request, which had to be considered by all eligible 9th Circuit judges, also resulted in a majority decision, with six judges disagreeing with the rejection of the request.
The legal contention over the Greenpeace injunction revolves around the fact that, while Shell had cited actions by Greenpeace organizations around the world as evidence that Greenpeace intended harm to the company’s Arctic activities, the injunction was against Greenpeace U.S.A., an entity that, while verbally supporting actions taken by other Greenpeace organization, had not itself participated in those actions.
Separate entity Apparently Greenpeace U.S.A. is a completely separate legal entity from other Greenpeace organizations, with each organization licensing the Greenpeace name but acting independently. Greenpeace had argued — and some of the judges had agreed — that a court could not impose an injunction on Greenpeace U.S.A. based on the actions of other entities over which it had no control.
“In doing so, the decision disregards corporate norms of limited liability and relies on a guilt-by-association model that offends justice,” the dissenting judges wrote. The dissenting judges also said that penalizing Greenpeace U.S.A. for statements endorsing the actions of other Greenpeace organizations likely infringed Greenpeace U.S.A.’s rights to free speech under the U.S. constitution.
Meantime in London six Greenpeace protesters were arrested for trespass on July 11 after climbing the Shard, Europe’s tallest building, in protest at Shell’s plans for drilling in the Arctic. According to a report in the Guardian newspaper three Shell office buildings, including the company’s London headquarters, are in line of sight of the top of the Shard.
—Alan Bailey
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