Environmental matters are becoming important challenges for industrial, services and public services organisations: all are more concerned by social responsibility to understand and reduce environmental impact. They need to address changing factors such as health security, climate change, fast-changing renewables opportunities, risk management, land contamination to mention just a few. To assist you in meeting these environmental law challenges, CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre can provide with an approach based on a detailed knowledge of your sector, on synergy between our offices and those of other CMS firms, and on the legal and practical knowledge of our lawyers.
Our Practice Areas
Our clients rely on our thorough expertise and experience in financial, legal and tax matters throughout all stages of their environmental projects:
- Environmental law compliance
- Health and safety – including Asbestos, lead and PCBs issues management
- Contamination land – including liability issues for soil, surface and groundwater, remediation
- Environment protection – creation, management, closure of registered installations (“ICPE”), nature conservation and water law
- CO2 Emissions
- Environmental taxation
Our Approach
At CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre, we are continuously expanding our capacity to work with clients to create value added services in the environmental law context. For example, our lawyers have been involved in natural environment protection and health & safety monitoring since the beginning of the renewable energies implementation in France. To better advise you, we bring together qualified specialists (energy, project finance, public law, tax and environmental legal, etc.) that will provide comprehensive advice on a range of issues such as:
- Legal advice, opinions and assistance on environmental law aspects
- Environmental audits and risk and impact assessment
- Due diligence and contract drafting in all types of transactions
- Transactions management – advice to buyers, sellers, lessors, lessees, borrowers and lending institutions in case of acquisitions and sales, mergers ….
- Legal representation of clients in their disputes relating to their environment matters (civil, criminal and administrative jurisdictions)
Finally, our CMS network allows our French lawyers to work very closely with the local practices of other CMS member firms, in particular through regular sharing of information and experience. This in turn means that, in resolving your legal issues, we can draw on a perspective going well beyond France, offer standardised quality, and field teams who regularly work on cross-border and multi-jurisdictional transactions.
Our Clients
We advise major developers, investors and lenders involved in environmental projects. They include states, national and local authorities in France and overseas, public and private companies, utilities, niche operators, multinationals, investment funds, and start-ups.
We work for them on national and international projects, in teams which are integrated with our various offices and those of other CMS firms.
Our Team
Environmental matters concern different law areas at the national and international levels. Our lawyers have therefore a multi-disciplinary approach, with business, competition, employment and tax law perspectives. They also work in close collaboration with our experts based in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Finally, to offer you added value service, coordination is run by a single point of contact dedicated to ensuring quality service, dealing with conflicts of interest and billing matters.