The trial in North Dakota that observers are describing as a key free speech rights case has begun. Energy Transfer, a Texas-based company and the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline, is suing Greenpeace for alleged defamation and what their lawyers describe as a “campaign of violence.

The environmental group, battling a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, told the North Dakota Supreme Court it can’t get a fair trial.

A Texas pipeline company's lawsuit accusing Greenpeace of defamation, disruptions and attacks during protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline goes to trial in North Dakota on Monday, in a case the environmental advocacy organization says threatens free speech rights and its very future.

An attorney for a Texas pipeline company says he will show at trial that various Greenpeace entities coordinated delays and disruptions of a controversial oil pipeline's construction in North Dakota and defamed the company to its lenders.

Nick Tilsen’s deposition was the latest testimony heard by the nine-person jury in the marathon trial between pipeline developer Energy Transfer and Greenpeace

The organization is asking the North Dakota Supreme Court to move the civil trial brought forth by Energy Transfer to Cass County or elsewhere.

The request is the culmination of multiple unsuccessful attempts to convince Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion that Morton County is the wrong venue for the lawsuit.

A former Energy Transfer executive on Tuesday blamed political pressure for the federal government’s decision to delay a key permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline eight years ago.

Greenpeace provided supplies, intel and training to demonstrators who spent months camping near the Dakota Access Pipeline river crossing in south central North Dakota, employees said in video testimony played to a Morton County jury on Friday.

A Texas-based company claims the environmental advocacy group tried to delay construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline with protests.