Environmental

Our Environmental team is led by a partner whose practice has developed alongside the growth in environmental awareness over the last three decades. His previous experience as in-house counsel for one of the UK’s largest chemicals and manufacturing companies gives him pragmatic insight into our clients’ environmental issues.

Our team includes both solicitors who focus on transactional advice and those who focus on regulatory and litigation support. This ensures that our clients are provided with expert advice and support from lawyers who are aware of the diverse and distinct challenges clients experience when involved in either transactions or litigation.

To complement our Commercial Real Estate and Corporate practices we advise clients who need to identify and understand environmental liability associated with land and industrial operations as part of either portfolio management or due diligence prior to property or corporate acquisition. We assist with redevelopment and regeneration projects involving brownfield sites, where remediation is a condition of sale or required under the planning regime. Our expertise in negotiating appropriate liability transfer and apportionment is critical to our clients in order to identify the risk value of contaminated sites, while providing clarity as to future responsibility.

Our litigation team has experience of dealing with a wide range of environment issues including: noise to neighbours, asbestos in buildings, fish kills arising from chemical releases and breaches of waste dumping regulations, including disposal of incorrect waste at licensed sites. We have also represented clients in respect of claims brought for environmental contamination arising from Legionnaires disease. Additionally our litigation team has experience of representing clients at inquests, in environmental agency interviews under caution and defending health and safety and environmental prosecutions.

Recently our team has been proud to be involved with:

• Advising a multi-national group on the environmental aspects of a business and property disposal of a manufacturing site for ongoing industrial use, but with provisions for clean-up of contamination from a former site use
• Advising on the environmental and regulatory aspects of the purchase of an oil storage terminal business
• Compliance auditing for regulatory health and safety issues for an international chain of hotels
• Advising a multi-national on complex joint venture liabilities and insurance arrangements where a catastrophic incident had caused multiple third party claims
• Advising on the acquisition of a metallic waste and environmental control and remediation business for a US based group