Dutch Court Establishes Jurisdiction in the Greenpeace Anti-SLAPP Case – Part II
This post was prepared by Birgit van Houtert (Assistant Professor, Maastricht University), co-chair of the EAPIL Working Group on Anti-SLAPP Directive Transpositions and member for The Netherlands, and Marco Pasqua (Examiner, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan), co-chair of the EAPIL Working Group on Anti-SLAPP Directive Transpositions. Marco Pasqua is the author of paragraphs 1 and 2, while Birgit van Houtert is the author of paragraphs 3, 4 and 5. This post follows Part I.
3. Dutch Law Lacks the Special Jurisdiction Ground of Article 17(1) Anti-SLAPP Directive
In line with what has been earlier argued here, the District Court of Amsterdam held in the interlocutory proceedings that the “EM incorrectly states that Article 17 of the SLAPP Directive requires no implementation” (4.9). The Court also supports this argument with Recital 44 of the Directive that refers to Article 17(1) as a ‘new special jurisdiction ground’ in relation to existing jurisdiction rules.While Article 17(1) of the Anti-SLAPP Directive merely requires that the target in a SLAPP-case is domiciled or established in the Netherlands, Article 6(e) DCCP requires that the damage occurred, or may occur, in the Netherlands. Following the CJEU’s settled case law on Article 7(2) Brussels I bis (Universal Music), the localisation of purely financial damage in the claimant’s bank account is insufficient on its own to establish jurisdiction; additional circumstances are required to establish a sufficiently close connection with the forum (4.17). The Dutch EM (p. 17) also acknowledged this requirement and provided two examples of such circumstances, namely the fact that the participation in the public debate took place from the place of residence of the SLAPP-target, or that the SLAPP target has never even set foot in the country where the SLAPP was brought. However, this judgment constitutes a significant indication that the Dutch legislature should transpose the jurisdictional ground laid down in Article 17(1) into Dutch private international law.
4. Article 6(e) DCCP: Additional Circumstances Besides Pure Financial Damage
With respect to the prima facie assessment of the localisation of the damage in the context of Article 6(e) DCCP, the Dutch court took the statements of both parties into account (4.16). First, the Dutch court held that GPI has established, prima facie, that it has been suffering pure financial loss in the Netherlands as a result of the significant legal costs of its defence in the two lawsuits in the U.S. (4.19). As regards the additional circumstances, the Dutch court followed GPI’s argumentation that it has allegedly been suffering damage as a result of coordinating the defence against the two U.S. lawsuits from the Netherlands, particularly as staff had to be deployed for this purpose, thereby leaving them with less time to carry out work in pursuit of GPI’s statutory idealistic purpose (4.22.1-4.22.3).
Based on these additional circumstances and the alleged financial damage, the Dutch court found a close connection between the court and GPI’s claims, which satisfies the foreseeability requirement of Brussels I bis (4.23). Given this close connection, it had therefore been predictable for ET to be sued before this court. According to the Dutch court, this jurisdiction concerns GPI’s claims arising from the U.S. unlawful proceedings (SLAPPs), which includes the alleged reputational damage from these lawsuits (4.24).
Article 6(e) DCCP: GPI’s Centrum of Interests
GPI also claims to have sustained reputational damage caused by ET’s defamatory statements via the internet and in television-interviews. Notably, the Dutch court did not engage with the question whether the alleged defamatory statements disseminated through television broadcasts should be assessed differently from online publications. This issue may be relevant in light of the CJEU’s case law, as the jurisdiction ground of the victim’s “centre of interests” under Article 7(2) Brussels I bis in the ruling of eDate and Bolagsupplysningen specifically concerned internet-based publications. AG Rantos recently indicated in its Opinion in Case C-232/25 Idziski, that this case law does not apply to alleged infringements of personality rights resulting from the broadcasting on television.
ET argues that GPI’s centre of interests is not located in the Netherlands, as GPI carries out many activities outside the Netherlands and the majority of GPI’s employees work abroad. However, GPI argued that its centre of interests is located in the Netherlands, relying on the fact that it is a Dutch legal entity with its statutory seat in Amsterdam, conducts its principal organisational and financial activities there, employs a substantial number of staff under Dutch law, and manages the Greenpeace network’s trademarks and vessels from the Netherlands. As GPI significantly manages its global activities from the Netherlands, the Dutch court concluded that GPI’s centre of interests is located in the Netherlands (4.30). Therefore, the Dutch court established jurisdiction over GPI’s claims against ET concerning the allegedly defamatory statements published on the internet in 2017 and 2025.
The Dutch court’s interpretation of the ‘centre of interests’ criterion is in line with the CJEU’s factual activities-based approach to that criterion in Bolagsupplysningen. Furthermore, it enables the Dutch court to assess the entire damage allegedly caused by the online defamatory statements worldwide and to order the removal and rectification of those statements.
5. No Stay of Dutch Proceedings
ET argued that the Dutch proceedings should be stayed under Article 12 DCCP until a final judgment has been rendered in the U.S. State Lawsuit. GPI sought a new trial following the North Dakota District Court’s judgment on 27 February 2026. This judgment reduced the compensatory and punitive damages awarded by the North Dakota jury for conspiracy, defamation, and tortious interference with business relations, lowering them from $600 million to $345 million.
Article 12 DCCP stipulates that “if a case has been made pending before the court of a foreign state and in that case a decision can be given that is eligible for recognition and, where applicable, enforcement in the Netherlands, a Dutch court that is subsequently seised of a case between the same parties on the same subject may stay the proceedings until a decision has been given by the foreign court. If that decision is eligible for recognition and, where applicable, enforcement in the Netherlands, the Dutch court must decline jurisdiction.”
However, the Dutch court held that there is no reason to stay the proceedings as the subject matters in the Dutch case and the North Dakota State Lawsuit are not the same (4.37-4.40). The Dutch case concerns GPI’s claim that ET acted unlawfully by initiating SLAPPs in the U.S., as well as by making defamatory statements about GPI via the internet and television. While the State Lawsuit concerns ET’s allegation that it suffered damage as a result of GPI’s unlawful conduct in relation to the construction of the pipeline, including damage to ET’s reputation.
This conclusion regarding the similarity of the subject matter is in line with the North Dakota District Court in its decision of 9 September 2025, in which it dismissed ET’s motion for an anti-suit injunction seeking to prevent GPI from pursuing the Dutch Anti-SLAPP litigation. This Court held that the Dutch and North Dakota proceedings did not concern the same issues, as GPI’s claims in the Netherlands are based on anti-SLAPP and defamation law, whereas North Dakota does not have anti-SLAPP legislation and GPI had not raised any defamation claims in the North Dakota proceedings.
However, according to the North Dakota Supreme Court’s Opinion on 7 May 2026, the legal label attached to a claim is not decisive in the context of assessing the similarity of the subject matter. Rather, the relevant question is “whether resolution of the foreign claim requires adjudicating the same underlying factual and legal questions” (para. 29). Applying this test, the North Dakota Supreme Court considered that determining whether the North Dakota proceedings were “manifestly unfounded and abusive” would necessarily require an examination of the merits of those proceedings and would therefore amount to relitigating issues that had already been decided by the North Dakota jury (para. 28). This has been one of the factors underlying the North Dakota Supreme Court’s conclusion that ET is entitled to a tailored anti-suit injunction, as further explained by Hannah Buxbaum. However, the Dutch court will continue with the Anti-SLAPP proceedings on the merits of the case.