Peter Foster: Resolute Forest Products uses mafia laws to go after the eco ‘mob’

The RICO suit alleges Greenpeace is a ‘fraud’ that has ‘duped’ donors.

Financial Post - Peter Foster 02/06/2016

All too often, corporations, concerned about the potential damage to their bottom lines from any “controversy,” kowtow to media-savvy radical environmentalists. Thus the lawsuit brought three years ago by Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products against Greenpeace for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations” represented a rare display of business backbone.

Greenpeace is still trying desperately to avoid its day in Canadian court, but now Resolute, under its arrow-straight CEO Richard Garneau, has upped the ante. On Tuesday, the company launched another suit — against Greenpeace and STAND (the environmental NGO formerly known as ForestEthics) — under U.S. anti-racketeering laws.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) was introduced early last century, with both criminal and civil provisions, to deal with the mob; that is, a loose organization, or “enterprise,” with a pattern of activity and common nefarious purposes, such as extortion. That is exactly what Resolute is alleging of Greenpeace.

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