Environment

The Environment has come to assume increasing importance in the European Union’s strategies and the public policies of its Member States, based on an awareness that over the next decades our economic and social development will demand the adoption of significant environmental commitments.

As a result, the Environmental regulatory framework has evolved at an accelerated pace, imposing new requirements and demands on both public and private entities.

VdA has a team specialised in the legal impacts and implications of this framework across various sectors, particularly the Energy and Maritime sectors, and with long experience in the provision of legal advice on Environmental matters, in the context of corporate, real estate and infrastructure transactions. 

Using interdisciplinary working methods, we advise on complex regulatory issues with the aim of ensuring that our clients successfully operate within the legal boundaries of each project (including in the African jurisdictions where VdA Legal Partners is present), where the need for support in dealing with environmental issues has become increasingly frequent.

Entities are now subject to strict environmental rules and requirements in various domains and are regularly named as defendants, whether by the State or by pressure groups, in legal actions aimed at establishing environmental civil responsibility. We have successfully represented countless clients in criminal, civil and administrative cases relating to the alleged violation of environmental, health and safety rules. Our vast local experience and knowledge of the Portuguese-speaking African jurisdictions and East Timor make VdA the first point of call in issues related to the Environment.

Legal services

  • Environmental audits and assessment of companies’ level of environmental compliance
  • Assistance with the preparation, amendment and revision of urban plans and land planning instruments
  • Due diligence to identify building potential and the constraints or restrictions on the use of urban or rural buildings
  • Monitoring of administrative control procedures related to urban developments
  • Legal advice on the regularisation of urban planning projects
  • Assistance with processes of expropriation for public interest
  • Drafting of legal opinions
  • Environmental litigation
  • Environmental arbitrations
  • Assistance with environmental impact assessments and environmental incident assessments
  • Assistance with all aspects of environmental and industrial licensing processes
  • Waste, noise, water resources, the sea, air emissions, emissions trading and emission allowances auctions, forestry and agricultural resources, phytopharmaceutical products and hazardous substances
  • Environmental impacts on land management
  • Environmental responsibility (including insurance and other financial guarantees)
  • Environmental liabilities and soil contamination
  • Establishment of environmental funds
  • Environmental taxation (environmental taxes and charges)
  • Environmental misdemeanours and pre-litigation and litigation cases
  • Transactions and projects in the real estate and tourism sectors (environmental dimension): commercial centres, retail parks, hotels, tourism developments and golf courses, industry, renewable energy and the exploitation of natural resources
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