Greenpeace, facing an approaching court date with Energy Transfer (ET), has filed its own suit against the midstream company—in Holland.

The environmental group announced Feb. 11 that it filed an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer in Amsterdam, attempting to take advantage of a new European Union law that aims to protect activists against silencing legal action.

Greenpeace International accused ET of filing meritless lawsuits against the group and seeks to recover any damages brought by fighting the legal action. (SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”)

Greenpeace’s suit is in response to a legal action Energy Transfer took against the group. In 2017, ET filed for $300 million in damages over activists' attempts to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline project.

Energy Transfer accuses Greenpeace of defamation that manipulated indigenous groups to resist the project. After years of legal action, a five-week trial is set to begin Feb. 24 in Mandan, North Dakota.

It is unclear how the European law could be used against Energy Transfer, Reuters reported. The company’s operations map does not show any assets outside of the U.S., though ET ships to international customers and has offices in Beijing and Panama.  

Energy Transfer executives did not discuss the issue during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Feb. 11 and the company did not immediately respond to Hart Energy’s request for comment on Feb. 12.

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