Mayer Brown’s Global Climate Change group offers an experienced and sophisticated team of lawyers from the firm’s practices worldwide – corporate, environmental, energy, government, global trade, structured & project finance, litigation, antitrust & competition, insurance, and tax. We provide practical solutions to complex and challenging climate- and energy-related issues for a wide variety of clients. A representative sampling of our experience includes:

Policy, Legislative Drafting, Strategy and Lobbying
Project Development, Project Finance and Emissions Trading
Compliance and Regulatory Advice
Risk Management in Transactions and Business Planning
Litigation - Advocacy and Counseling

Policy, Legislative Drafting, Strategy and Lobbying
Climate change policy is a critical and contentious issue. As governments and international bodies wrestle with new laws and regulations to address climate change, businesses must participate in policy-making while they struggle to stay abreast of new compliance requirements, reduce exposure, and manage increasing costs.

In both government service and private practice, lawyers in our Global Climate Change group have played an important role in international climate negotiations and in drafting a number of climate change-related laws. One of Mayer Brown’s lawyers participated as a Congressional staff observer in intergovernmental proceedings leading to the FCCC, and attended as a nonparticipating attendee the negotiating session of the Ad Hoc Working Group that developed the Kyoto Protocol. We have attended each of the FCCC’s Conference of Parties, including the 2007 session in Bali, as well as the first and subsequent sessions of the Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

In the United Kingdom, we are currently participating in the Legal Liaison Panel to the UK Emissions Trading Group and the UK Environmental Law Association’s Climate Change Working Group.

In the United States, our lawyers have served as co-authors or advisers to the authors of several climate change-related state laws. For example, some of our lawyers participated as co-authors of AB-32, California’s greenhouse gas emissions law. At the federal level, we have participated in workshops to develop revisions to the US Energy Department’s General and Technical Guidelines for voluntary reporting of GHG emissions and reductions under section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

At the federal level, we have developed climate strategies, drafted proposed statutory and report language, analyzed legislative and regulatory provisions, developed position paper on complex legal and public policy issues, prepared written comments for clients to submit on proposed regulations, and prepared testimony for witnesses appearing before legislative bodies. Our lawyers have also participated in workshops.

Representative matters include:

• Advised a leading European utility in the development of an enabling legal and policy framework for CCS in the European Union
   
• Advised the European Commission in developing an EU strategy for use of renewable energy in transport, in particular on urban transport (e.g., the LIFE+ or the CITADIS programs)
   
• Counseled an industry group in analyzing various provisions, including international trade barriers, of climate change legislation pending in the US Congress
   
• Advised industrial companies in obtaining a solution for hydro fluorocarbon (HFC) under the cap-and-trade legislation pending in the US Congress
   
• Counseled a range of clients in providing comments for submission to the US Climate Change Science Program and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

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Project Development, Project Finance and Emissions Trading
Our clients are involved in a wide variety of climate and energy undertakings. These include establishing new plants and retrofitting existing ones; buying and selling carbon credits; evaluating and investing in new emission reduction technologies; building and financing renewable and other energy projects; and exploring alternative, non-carbon emitting energy infrastructure. Mayer Brown provides comprehensive legal advice in all aspects of project development on behalf of power generation and related businesses.

In the push to “go green”, clients have sought our assistance in switching to renewable energy and constructing energy-efficient buildings. We have also been involved in the development and financing of a number of projects that generate or utilize wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

Decades of collective experience enables us to counsel on structuring projects to benefit from the relevant legal framework, arrange financing, obtain the necessary construction and operating permits, carry out environmental impact assessments, and successfully trade carbon and other GHG emission credits.

We have been involved with the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the resultant EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) since their inception. We have also been involved in their implementation in Europe and other EU-ETS locations worldwide.

This hands-on experience has resulted in our lawyers being quite familiar with the intricacies of purchasing, selling, and financing emissions credits as well as with the various cap-and-trade schemes available in the global marketplace. We have advised on several projects under the Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms CDM and JI.

Representative matters include:

• Counseled a range of clients on various waste-to-energy projects in the United Kingdom and the United States
   
• Advised a company with its bid for a contract to build a new climate-friendly power plant in a Balkan country
   
• Advised an EU gas and electric company about the design of a new power plant and the rehabilitation of an existing power plant to comply with local and international requirements
   
• Represented an engineering firm in structuring a power purchase agreement and secured grants and tax incentives for the development of a “microturbine power farm” that utilizes methane gas recovered from coal mines as its fuel
   
• Represented multiple investors in connection with the carbon dioxide purchase transactions leading to the construction of a carbon dioxide pipeline from a Great Plains synfuel plant in North Dakota for enhanced oil recovery in the Weyburn Field in Saskatchewan, Canada
   
• Represented various clients on trading of EU allowances, swaps, and other derivative transactions, including the use of ISDA, IETA, and EFET documentation
   
• Advised various clients on VAT and other tax implications of emissions trading transactions

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Compliance and Regulatory Advice
Outside the United States, GHG emissions regulations have their origins in the Kyoto Protocol (which came into force in 2005) and related decisions. Participating nations have implemented these agreements and established their own guidelines and regulations to expand on the established requirements, targets, and trading schemes.

In the United States, individual states are developing their own emission regulations and banding together to establish regional cap-and-trade programs. Federal legislation is also being debated, and existing statutes are under constant challenge in the courts. Traders of futures contracts on emission reductions and other environmental products at the Chicago Climate Exchange may find themselves governed by the exchange regulations and federal law.

Faced with an increasingly complex and quickly expanding regulatory burden, companies look to our lawyers for guidance in navigating the maze of legislation, regulations, and court decisions. We are particularly well-suited to provide this assistance because many of the lawyers on our team worked previously as government officials, actively engaged in the early development of the regulatory framework surrounding climate change, and attended the forums where the policies first took shape.

Representative matters include:

• Advised a large association of shareholder-owned electric companies on issues relating to global climate change, in particular providing legal analysis and advice on legislative and regulatory changes and participating in climate change conferences
   
• Counseled a US utility company on potential liabilities under Title IV Acid Rain provisions, Clean Air Interstate Rule, PSD provisions, and waiver application
   
• Advised a major US oil company on compliance with GHG Permits in the European Union
   
• Advised various clients on the interpretation and application of Renewable Energy Sources Directive and implementation of Dutch national law on emissions trading schemes
   
• Advised a power generator on a potential challenge to a national allocation plan under the EU-ETS

Risk Management in Transactions and Business Planning
Carbon can be an asset or a liability, depending on the state of the business concerned. Our lawyers are practiced at scoping carbon due diligence in M&A, real estate, and finance transactions, and then translating the results into practical solutions for commercial agreements.

Climate issues also will have implications for many other business activities. Insurance, risk assessment, protection of intellectual property, technology transfer, international trade, allocation of liability and credit, securities disclosure, and shareholder concerns may become increasingly complex to manage. With lawyers from the firm’s internationally acclaimed Corporate & Securities practice, our group is well-prepared to address these and any other corporate governance issues that arise as part of either regulatory compliance or a new commercial venture.

Representative matters include:

• Advised a large chemical business on an agreement to allocate GHG credits between the seller and the buyer
   
• Counseled a large oil company on the due diligence for its proposed bid for a European refinery business and the carbon terms of the sale and purchase agreement
   
• Advised a large global corporation on the terms of an outsourcing agreement that allocated embedded carbon savings arising from energy efficiency measures
   
• Represented a global financial services firm in the purchase of energy portfolios
   
• Represented an international energy company in merger control aspects of a number of proposals to acquire renewable energy businesses

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Litigation - Advocacy and Counseling
Climate change-related litigation stems from both an absence and an abundance of laws and regulations. In the absence of express climate regulations, litigants attempt to expand common law doctrines and existing statutes. Energy and automotive companies, in particular, are increasingly the target of lawsuits that push novel legal theories.

Mayer Brown is internationally recognized for its litigation practice. Drawing from this worldwide experience and talent, our Global Climate Change group is able to act not only as advocates in proceedings before trial and appellate courts, arbitration panels, and regulatory bodies, but as advisers beforehand, planning and strategizing to minimize litigation risks.

Representative matters include:

• Represented developers in a lawsuit asserting climate change issues under the California Environmental Quality Act
   
• Advised industry interveners as co-counsel on climate issues in both US Court of Appeals and Supreme Court proceedings
   
• Represented the owner and manager of several central Illinois coal mines against cost-plus contract claims
   
• Served several European electric and gas companies as antitrust advisor on energy sector-related amendments to German Act of Restraints on Competition
   
• Represented an energy client in obtaining a reduction in pipeline easement rental fees worth in excess of $150 million
   
• Represented a refining company against tort claims by a municipality arising from alleged contamination of drinking water
   
• Advised an owner in connection with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing hearings with regards to Consumer Power, Midland, Michigan, Nuclear Power Plant