How Litigation Throttles Civic Advocacy

Bunny Mcdiarmid, Executive Director of Greenpeace International discusses how corporations are using SLAPPs to target advocacy groups. This article explains why corporations would pursue a lawsuit that they expect to lose:

“In many ways, hiring goons is a lot easier and lot less complicated, because bringing to bear the massive financial and legal resources necessary to silence a critic is costly, complex and time-consuming. And this is exactly the idea behind [SLAPPs]; they tie up the defendant as much as the plaintiff so that the defendant is no longer able to perform their civic duty as a watchdog.”

Mcdiarmid adds, “Victory in a SLAPP comes far before the final verdict – success is in the execution of the SLAPP itself. Has your critic been rendered immobile within the expensive, resource-draining rigmarole of the legal proceedings? Yes? Then you’ve done your job.”