Practice area

Environmental Law

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Climate law

International obligations, in particular through Norway’s EEA membership, imply that new and stricter requirements are continuously being imposed on the Norwegian businesses. These include requirements for permits and conduct, strategies, reporting, and new emissions trading requirements. Furthermore, in light of the climate and nature crisis, increasingly strict requirements are imposed to counteract climate and nature risks. Currently, both private-law and public-law impact assessment and due diligence requirements apply to Norwegian businesses. In addition, businesses are obliged to counteract greenwashing, and marketing must comply with requirements that are in line with new regulations on green claims. Moreover, a large part of the private sector is also subject to supervision, inspections, and scrutiny.

Environmental law

Wiersholm has a long history of assisting Norwegian businesses in their dialogue with environmental authorities. We provide advice in connection with applications for emission permits, compliance with BAT requirements, and permits relating to measures and plans that may have an impact on the environment. We also assist with complaints to environmental authorities and the ministries, or in subsequent lawsuits against the authorities in connection with environmental matters. Our environmental law team is highly experienced when it comes to contact with authorities and legal assessments in connection with public requirements and orders in the event of breaches, or suspected breaches, of pollution permits and other environmental regulations. In more serious pollution matters, we assist clients in criminal cases.

We also handle waste law matters, such as the characterisation of a product as waste or by-product, the handling of waste and hazardous waste, as well as issues of compliance with waste law rules. Furthermore, we advise our clients in private-law disputes relating to pollution liability and we assist with the contractual regulation of risk and pollution liability. The Wiersholm environmental law team has extensive experience with environmental due diligence in connection with the acquisition of companies or property. We also have broad experience in examining internal control/routines in connection with unlawful pollution.

Besides, we work strategically and proactively to implement upcoming requirements for due diligence assessments in environmental law, and to meet the increasingly strict requirements in this area.

Climate and environmental issues arise and must be handled in different branches of jurisprudence, across a range of industries, and in several types of cases. Our environmental law team possesses wide-ranging expertise and handles complex matters in all areas of climate and environmental law, including through interdisciplinary teams.

ESG

We advise our clients on new requirements under e.g. the taxonomy, the Norwegian Transparency Act, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), as well as upcoming regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), and a potential social taxonomy. In all of these areas, we have a broad experience in advising on everything from applicability, liability risk, and implementation of new ESG strategies within businesses. We have extensive experience assisting clients in restructuring processes and we work proactively with our clients to ensure compliance with new regulations. You can read more about Wiersholm’s ESG and Compliance expertise here.

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