Rome – Italian oil and gas company, ENI, filed an official Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) on Monday, 7 October, targeting two organisations, Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon. It is the latest fossil fuel major to launch an ill-founded legal assault at a Greenpeace organisation, joining Shell, Total and Energy Transfer in an attack against civil freedoms and environmental protection. 

“There is no surprise in ENI joining other climate polluters like Shell, TotalEnergies and Energy Transfer in trying to silence civil society. The business model of the oil and gas industry entails both an assault on people and nature, as well as oppression of those who call it out,” stated Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon. “Our determination to defend our planet remains unwavering. We shall continue to expose ENI as a member of the club of companies most responsible for the climate crisis, and inform the public about what ENI is trying to hide,” the organisations concluded.  

ENI’s judicial attack was first announced in July 2023, in an effort to counter a still pending lawsuit – the Just Cause – filed two months earlier by Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon against the oil giant. The official filing of the case this week sets the oil company to meet environmental organisations in court in 2025.

Rising oil and gas related emissions are directly responsible for the onslaught of extreme weather events striking worldwide, including killer drought, extreme heat and floods in Italy. A peer-reviewed 2023 study by Greenpeace Netherlands finds ENI’s self-reported 2022 emissions could cause 27,000 excess deaths due to increased temperature alone before the end of the century. 

A global rise in climate litigation cases by environmental defenders is helping to hold polluters accountable. The series of recent SLAPP cases by Shell, TotalEnergies, Energy Transfer and ENI is part of a looming “backlash” that the United Nations had warned of.[1] Nevertheless, the European Union issued an anti-SLAPP directive last April which, once implemented, can put an end to such tactics.[2] Italy must implement the directive by 7 May 2026.

“The fossil fuel industry is trying to constitute a world in which communities are not only battered by the climate crisis, but where it is dangerous for anyone to protest and offer an alternative. If companies like ENI have their way, scientists, Indigenous Peoples and environmental organisations will be squeezed into an ever shrinking democratic space,” said Chiara Campione, programme co-director of Greenpeace Italy. 

Loss and damage, caused by the oil and gas industry, are leaving individuals and families destitute, burdening national budgets and breaking the global insurance system. Greenpeace organisations will maintain their work to hold the world’s polluters accountable and to lead a global campaign for governments to force climate polluters to stop drilling and start paying.

ENDS

Notes:

[1] This is according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s 2023 publication, Global Climate Litigation Report: 2023 Status Review. 

[2] European Union’s anti-SLAPP directive.

Contacts: 

Felice Moramarco, Greenpeace Italy, Communication project strategist, [email protected], +39 3487630682

Tal Harris, Greenpeace International, Global Media Lead – Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign, [email protected], +41-782530550

Greenpeace International Press Desk: [email protected], +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours). Follow @greenpeacepress for our latest international press releases