Issues

Arthur Cox: A leading Irish law firm for environment and planning

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Arthur Cox outlines some of the key areas of expertise within the firm’s Environment and Planning Group and profiles its key individuals.

The practice
Arthur Cox’s Environment & Planning Group is independently ranked and widely acknowledged as one of Ireland’s leading environment and planning practices. We advise across all sectors, including energy and natural resources, water and wastewater, food and agribusiness, waste, pharmachem, manufacturing and transport, health & social infrastructure. We act for public authorities, commercial state bodies, joint ventures between commercial state bodies, local authorities, government departments, public private partnerships, corporates, private developers and funding institutions.

We take pride in delivering results, be it securing funding, land-use consents and operational consents, or successfully instituting or defending criminal, civil and judicial review proceedings.

All members are experienced litigators with a keen eye for dispute avoidance / resolution. We provide innovative and strategic advice, both at the pre-litigation stage and in non-contentious cases, in relation to the anticipation, avoidance and management of project risks, putting our clients in the best possible position to take or defend challenges, in particular on European law grounds.

Expertise
Energy and Natural Resources
We have advised on every major waste-to-energy project, almost every licensed private MSW (municipal solid waste) landfill, Ireland’s only hazardous landfill, and the disposal of municipal waste collection businesses. We have advised on almost every major energy infrastructure project in Ireland in the past decade, including waste-fuelled and biomass power projects, independent gas-fired power projects, upstream gas infrastructure and offshore and onshore windfarms.

Water and Wastewater
We advise on the State’s largest water supply project that aims to meet the future water supply needs of the Eastern and Midlands Region and the Greater Dublin Drainage Project that aims to substantially increase the wastewater treatment capacity in the Greater Dublin Area, as well as on many other water and wastewater projects nationwide. Our contentious work is varied, from defending Circuit Court and High Court applications challenging water abstraction orders to defence of criminal proceedings for breach of the Water Pollution and Fisheries Acts and licence breaches.
Food and Agribusiness.

We advise clients on planning and environmental issues arising from facility expansion plans, reviews of technical amendments to EPA licences, and planning GM trials. We provide advices on the regulatory regime on food and feed safety; food and feed hygiene and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points); food packaging, labelling, advertising and marketing of food products; and nutrition and health claims and restrictions on allergens and additives. We also advise our clients on regulatory compliance issues, enforcement proceedings, product safety and liability, product recall and crisis management strategies, nuisance, environmental breach and on any associated litigation.

Waste
We provide niche regulatory advice on using wastes as fuel within combustion processes in existing industrial facilities, and on animal by-products and sewage sludges. We advise the WEEE Register Society Ltd., the waste electrical and electronic equipment regulation body and REPAK, Ireland’s sole waste packaging compliance scheme operator. Our contentious work includes advising on illegal waste dumping, including advising on one of the largest European illegal ELV dumps. We have successfully judicially reviewed a variation to the Waste Management Plan for the Dublin Region and taken a number of judicial review proceedings challenging or defending the refusal of EPA Licences. We have also defended criminal proceedings for alleged breaches of EU law regarding transfrontier shipment of waste.

Transport, Health and Social
We have advised the Railway Procurement Agency on numerous extensions of the Luas network, developers / funders on numerous motorways, roads and related projects and Dublin Airport Authority on Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport; Dublin Port Company on its proposed expansion of Dublin Port. We advise on PPP Programmes for Schools Bundles (1–5), the Third Level Bundles (1-3), the Courts Bundle and the DIT Grangegorman Campus PPP. We have most recently advised on securing planning consent for the redevelopment of the National Forensic Mental Health Hospital.

Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals and Manufacturing
Ireland is currently attracting new pharma start-ups and consolidations and we are at the forefront of advising on these matters. We provide strategic advice to clients on site contamination, site closure, the surrender of EPA licences and financial management provisioning negotiation with the EPA. We provide regulatory advice on REACH, COMAH, RoHS, PFoS, pesticides and biocides.

Corporate Recovery
With the recession, we have met increased demand for advice from banks, liquidators and receivers, and have engaged with regulatory authorities over liability regarding the completion of unfinished housing estates and especially waste water infrastructure. Calls on available funds are tight. We advised a major bank in its defence of Commercial High Court proceedings brought by the EPA over rights to a fund of several million euro in connection with landfill management / closure, raising novel EU policy and trust-based environmental claims.

Deborah Spence

Scannell Yvonne HS

Conaghan Danielle HS (white background)

Rafferty Laura HS 2014

Collins Don HS 2015

Deborah Spence heads the Environment & Planning Group, Co-Heads the Food & Agribusiness Group and is a founder member of the firm’s Health and Safety Group. Deborah has an extensive environment and planning practice in infrastructure and utilities with over 15 years’ specialism in complex issues around waste management liability, energy & renewables, water and wastewater infrastructure, corporate and individual regulatory compliance, contaminated sites and operational consents, with a strong focus on problem solving and practical solutions. deborah.spence@arthurcox.com

Dr Yvonne Scannell has been the Environmental Law consultant at Arthur Cox since 1990. She has been consistently nominated as one of the top three environmental lawyers in Ireland for many years. She has unparalleled expertise in advising and negotiating on planning and environmental matters. Her forte is finding solutions to complex problems, foreseeing difficulties and providing innovative legal advice. yvonne.scannell@arthurcox.com

Danielle Conaghan is a Senior Associate with over 10 years’ experience advising clients in the energy & renewables, food & agribusiness, water, health, and transport sectors on planning and environmental issues. Danielle has a keen interest in project management and uses those skills to help clients secure and reduce the risk of successful challenges to project consents. She has particular expertise in oral hearings; judicial reviews; injunction proceedings; civil proceedings and defence of criminal enforcement proceedings.
danielle.conagahan@arthurcox.com

Laura Rafferty is an Associate and former Barrister of over 5 years’ practice in this area. Her practice and experience covers all areas of environmental, planning and infrastructure law, with particular expertise in High Court planning judicial review, injunctive relief and criminal enforcement proceedings. She lectured on the Barrister-at-Law degree course in the King’s Inns on arbitration.
laura.rafferty@arthurcox.com

Don Collins is the most recent associate in the team, in his third year of PQE. His practice has a particular emphasis on advising on large scale developments, such as motorway and roads infrastructure and energy projects. He also has valuable experience in acting in High Court judicial review proceedings in the planning and environmental fields as well as advising on compulsory acquisition of land.
don.collins@arthurcox.com


For further information, please contact:
Deborah Spence, Partner, Head of Environment & Planning
Tel +353 (0)1 618 0444
Web: www.arthurcox.com

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