Environmental

Dilworth Paxson's Environmental Group covers a wide range of areas to meet the ever- expanding impact of environmental law on today's world. The Environmental Group attorneys represent clients in:

• advising clients on environmental compliance issues
• assisting clients in obtaining permits and regulatory approvals
• representing clients in obtaining financing for projects with significant environmental implications
• providing assistance on environmental issues in corporate and real estate transactions.
• litigating matters and facilitating administrative proceedings;

The Group draws upon the Firm's other considerable resources when necessary, and works to develop timely and practical solutions to environmental issues for its clients which include:

• Fortune 500 companies
• commercial and investment banks
• utilities
• small corporations
• individuals

Litigation matters are staffed with Group attorneys who have been "in the trenches" and are able to forcefully represent clients. Environmental cases, often with literally hundreds of parties, require the special management and experience that our Environmental Group attorneys provide to ensure efficient and effective representation.

Ensuring environmental compliance is particularly important in these days of more aggressive enforcement of environmental laws including at times imposition of criminal penalties. The Group works closely with clients to identify compliance issues and determine the most efficient way to properly resolve those issues.

Environmental law has become a critical aspect of many real estate, corporate, and lending transactions, with such issues including:

• environmental due diligence
• proper disclosure of environmental liabilities and compliance
• investigation by the purchaser or lender of potential environmental problems
• compliance with transfer laws such as New Jersey's Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act or Industrial Site Recovery Act
• ability of a lender to take actions concerning contaminated property and not be liable for that property
• apportionment of liability for past, present, and future environmental problems.

The Environmental Group attorneys have a strong history of dealing with these matters on behalf of sellers, purchasers, landlords, tenants, lenders, and borrowers.

Notable Decision

• Dilworth's environmental litigation lawyers successfully obtained a $23 million settlement for SEPTA on environmental contribution claims arising from the contamination of the Paoli Rail Yard. We proved through a process known as chemical fingerprinting that the vast majority of the environmental contamination of the Paoli Rail Yard occurred prior to 1976, when the Yard was owned by Penn Central Railway Company. After extensive discovery and motion practice, during which SEPTA's legal team obtained summary judgment against American Premier Underwriters Inc., the successor corporation to the bankrupt Penn Central Railway Company, Dilworth 's environmental litigation team was able to obtain the multi-million dollar settlement by proving that SEPTA did not cause the majority of the contamination of the Rail Yard which the EPA declared a Superfund Site in 1986.

For questions or additional information, please contact J. Bradford McIlvain, Chair of the Environmental Group.

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