Exxon Mobile has asked a French court to order Greenpeace to remove from a protest site a doctored version of its Esso logo which replaced the middle letters with two dollar signs. It is also seeking to have the French version of the site shutdown. The oil giant claims that Greenpeace is attempting to associate its Esso brand with the Nazi SS.

The Texas-based corporation is demanding €80,000 per day for damage to its reputation and a further €80,000 per day should Greenpeace fail to comply. It also wants to stop the campaign using the expression “StopE$$o”.

The StopEsso campaign in the UK is a coalition of pressure groups Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and People & Planet. It alleges that Esso “has run a ten year campaign of dirty tricks against international action to combat climate change.”

Stephan Tindale, Greenpeace UK Director, said:

“We simply replaced two letters in Esso’s logo with the internationally recognised symbol for the US dollar. We find it ironic that the richest corporation in the world can’t recognise the dollar sign and confuses it with a Nazi symbol.”

A court hearing for the case has been set for 1st July in Paris. The French StopEsso campaign was launched in May. Campaigns are also running in the US, Canada and Germany.

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