Environment

We defend prosecutions and represent clients facing regulatory action in the Magistrates’ and Crown Courts. Our lawyers have acted in more than 100 appeals before the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal related to civil penalties issued by the Environment Agency. 

We work closely with clients in reviewing the environmental compliance aspects of their business, identifying legal and reputational risks and advising on risk management.

We’ve worked for government departments and environmental regulators and understand how they operate, We are uniquely placed to advise clients in relation to enforcement action, and prospects of success when making representations/bringing appeals.

Our environment expertise is recognised as leading or ‘tier one’ by the UK Legal 500 - an independent guide to the legal sector. 

Our environment experience includes advising:

• on obtaining, modifying, transferring and surrendering environmental permits.
• on defending environmental permitting, waste and pollution prosecutions brought by regulators
• on appealing regulatory decisions on environmental permit applications and variation requests, and appealing Environment Agency post-inspection Compliance Assessment Reports (CARs). 
• to successfully negotiate enforcement undertakings with the Environment Agency and avoiding prosecution for alleged breaches of environmental permits.
• on compliance with climate change schemes, including the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS), the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), the Climate Change Agreements (CCA) scheme and the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (F-Gas) regime. This includes representing clients during all stages of regulatory enforcement action and at appeals against civil penalties before the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal.
• representing businesses in defending statutory nuisance clams and appealing Community Protection Notices (CPNs).
• on the environmental aspects of business and property transactions, including environmental due diligence, drafting and negotiating environmental warranties and indemnities, appointing environmental consultants and managing complex contaminated land issues.
• retail, manufacturer and importer clients on product stewardship and chemicals legislation, including packaging waste obligations, REACH, RoHS, PFAs, POPS, Energy-using Products design standards and labelling requirements. 
• on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) obligations, defending complaints made against clients to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the First-tier Tribunal, and advising on protecting commercially sensitive information from public disclosure.