Cadwalader's environmental practice has won precedent-setting court victories and negotiated innovative settlements and transactions.  With the Group's assistance, clients have adopted environmentally-aware corporate strategies, avoided compliance disputes with environmental agencies, and steered clear of criminal provisions.  In these matters, our practice involves virtually all major federal environmental regulatory programs, and many state programs as well.

We represent a variety of clients with diverse environmental interests throughout the United States, including chemical, building products, consumer products, manufacturing, petroleum, electric utility, investment, financial, defense, smelting and other companies. The practice includes client counseling, administrative proceedings, corporate transactions and civil and criminal litigation involving the Superfund (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, TSCA, the National Environmental Policy Act, FLPMA, comparable state laws of each of these statutes, and various other state statutes, such as New Jersey's Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act. 

Our environmental lawyers play an integral role in real estate transactions, performing environmental assessments in connection with real estate sales, leases and financings, advising clients on the significance of environmental matters to such transactions, and crafting contractual language appropriate for the client's interests.  For sellers, we have negotiated agreements in which the client retains significant control over the scope and cost of cleanup.  For purchasers, we have drafted broad indemnity provisions and negotiated substantial price reductions to account for environmental concerns.  On behalf of lenders, we have investigated environmental conditions and prepared provisions to limit the potential for lender liability.  We have prepared for landlords and tenants lease terms setting forth the parties' respective environmental compliance obligations.

As environmental laws and regulations now affect virtually all business transactions, our environmental lawyers also devote substantial time to counseling clients on the environmental aspects of corporate property transfers and business dispositions.  In that regard, we conduct environmental due diligence reviews in connection with mergers, acquisitions, real estate deals, financings, and other business transactions.  An integral part of any compliance review is the negotiation and preparation of contract language providing the broadest possible protection of the client's interest. 

We also frequently counsel lenders on the increasingly important issues of lender liability.  In this context, we have litigated enforcement actions on behalf of lenders who, according to EPA, became "operators" of the borrower's property as a result of lending-related activities.  We provide advice on an ongoing basis to banks and other financial institutions seeking to avoid CERCLA liability in the context of extending loans, engaging in foreclosures on property, and conducting due diligence in transactional settings. 

We appear frequently on behalf of clients in federal and state courts, in arbitrations and in other dispute resolution settings to litigate government and private party environmental claims arising out of a wide array of federal and state laws.  We also represent clients on environmental issues arising out of bankruptcy proceedings and other matters requiring advice in the intersection of environmental laws and laws affecting the debtor-creditor relationship. Most recently, we represented the U.S. Treasury Department's Auto Task Force in the Gm and Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings, and the debtors in the LyondellBasell bankruptcy, both of which involved a substantial environmental dimension.