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Environmental Transactions

We help buyers, sellers, lenders, developers, and investors identify, evaluate, and manage the environmental risks inherent in complex business transactions. Our team of experienced environmental attorneys works alongside our real estate, corporate, and finance lawyers to deliver integrated counseling on mergers and acquisitions, asset and stock purchases, real estate acquisitions and dispositions, financing arrangements, leasing transactions, and brownfield redevelopment projects. We take a practical, business-oriented approach, structuring risk-allocation and mitigation strategies, conducting thorough due diligence, and negotiating protective contract provisions so our clients can close transactions with confidence and clarity.

Examples of our experience include:

  • Representing national and international corporations and private equity and venture funds in hundreds of deals in the chemical, telecommunications, pulp and paper, aluminum, powder metal, metal components, steel, plastic, coatings, aerospace and defense, healthcare products, food, recycling, shopping center, real estate, lawn and tree care, pharmaceutical, synthetic biology, energy, and automotive industries on all environmental aspects of the purchase, sale, leasing, and financing of businesses and business assets.
  • Representing shopping center owners in connection with environmental issues in the purchase and sale of portfolio properties.
  • Representing a large national home improvement retailer in connection with environmental issues arising in site development.
  • Performing due diligence, including Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments, and negotiating and providing strategic planning on environmental issues in corporate and real estate acquisitions and sales, including the leveraged buyout of a highway construction and chemical manufacturer with more than 70 facilities in 25 states.
  • Representing buyers and lessees in connection with the process to qualify as bona fide prospective purchasers under CERCLA or meeting innocent landowner and contiguous property owner defenses and obtaining liability protection for buyers of contaminated property under various state programs.
  • Serving as lead environmental counsel for a private equity fund in connection with all environmental and NEPA and SHPO corporate, real estate, and lending issues in various transactions in the business services, media, and telecommunications industries, including fund formation and numerous acquisitions and dispositions.
  • Counseling public companies on the environmental aspects of SEC disclosure issues.
  • Obtaining closure under state regulatory programs and resolving environmental issues in distressed M&A transactions, including representing clients under various transfer acts, such as New Jersey’s Industrial Sites Recovery Act.
  • Representing clients in achieving closure and obtaining tax credits under voluntary action and brownfield programs, including the New York Voluntary Cleanup Program, Ohio Voluntary Action Program, Pennsylvania Act 2 Program, and Michigan Part 201 Cleanup Program.
  • Advising developers through the Ohio Voluntary Action Program and associated financing and tax increment financing programs to convert existing manufacturing land uses to light industrial, commercial, warehouse, or residential developments.
  • Assisting real estate developers in brownfield acquisitions to retain a liability transfer company, negotiate environmental liability transfer and escrow agreements, and procure environmental insurance.
  • Supporting environmental due diligence and management of investigations for the construction of large professional sports complexes and associated commercial and residential developments.
  • Representing a lending institution in connection with environmental issues relating to the sale of more than 500 branch offices.
  • Counseling on the brownfield redevelopment of a manufacturing facility converted to a transportation, logistics, and warehousing complex, and of a historic arcade converted to a hotel and retail complex.