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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

  • work Practice Area

    Environmental

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Tuesday, January 3, 2023

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

$297.00

This CLE course will guide counsel on leveraging environmental audits to enhance compliance and on mitigating risks associated with audit discoveries. The panel will discuss privilege, voluntary disclosure, and best practices for responding to violations.

Faculty

Joel D. Eagle
Partner
Thompson Hine

Mr. Eagle represents public and private entities in the industrial, commercial and manufacturing sectors, where he focuses his practice on all aspects of environmental law including regulatory compliance counseling involving CERCLA, state Brownfield and voluntary action program site cleanup laws, including on vapor intrusion remediation and risk management; mobile source regulatory counseling, certification support and enforcement defense before U.S. EPA and the California Air Resources Board; regulatory development, site remediation and risk management counseling for emerging contaminants, including PFAS; legislative and rulemaking support and enforcement defense regarding hydrofluorocarbons; compliance counseling and enforcement defense for federal, state and local water, solid and hazardous waste laws and regulations; and environmental due diligence and contract negotiation in connection with the sale and purchase of businesses and industrial properties.

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Lawrence P. Schnapf
Principal
Schnapf LLC, LLC

Mr. Schnapf primarily concentrates on environmental risks associated with corporate, real estate and brownfield transactions; commercial financing including asset-based lending, syndicated loans, mezzanine loans and distressed debt; and bankruptcy, workouts and corporate restructuring. He has extensive experience with brownfield redevelopment and financing, including representing affordable housing developers and assisting local development corporations or not-for-profit organizations with their brownfield planning programs. Mr. Schnapf also counsels clients on environmental, represents clients in federal and state environmental litigation, enforcement actions, administrative proceedings and private cost recovery actions. He is a past Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the NYSBA, Co-Chair of the NYSBA brownfield task force, and former Co-Chair of the NYSBA Hazardous Site Remediation Committee. Mr. Schnapf is a past Chair of the ABA Section of Business Law Committee on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law and a Vice Chair of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. He has also served on a number of ASTM Task Groups, including Chair of the legal subcommittee for the ASTM E1527  task force responsible for the 2013 and 2021 revisions to ASTM E1527 phase 1 standard and was Co-Chair of the legal sub-committee for the ASTM Vapor Intrusion Task Group.

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Description

Environmental audits allow companies to proactively identify and address environmental problems before civil litigation or enforcement actions arise. The EPA and many states offer companies incentives to encourage compliance, including self-reporting identified issues in order to be eligible for potential reduced or eliminated penalties.

Whether a newly acquired or long-standing business, companies and their counsel must take measures to ensure ongoing environmental compliance and environmental audits provide an avenue for detecting and correcting potential problems. Regular self-auditing can help reduce governmental penalties and limit injunctive relief faced in enforcement actions, apart from voluntary disclosure of noncompliance to regulatory agencies.

There are potential risks associated with voluntarily uncovering and documenting violations, as well as with the disclosure of violations. Audit findings can be evidence of compliance gaps and a company's knowledge of those holes. And audit disclosures may not always lead to a clean resolution of disclosed violations with the regulatory agency. Disclosed information could still lead to enforcement action and also may provide ammunition in private actions against the disclosing party.

Listen as our panel of environmental attorneys examines environmental enforcement policies and environmental auditing programs. The panel will discuss privilege and its exceptions, as well as the pros and cons of voluntary disclosures. The panel will also offer strategies for responding to enforcement actions.

Outline

  1. Environmental compliance auditing
  2. Privileges available to protect audit-derived information
  3. Voluntary audit disclosure
    • EPA program
    • State programs
  4. Audit opportunities for new owners
  5. Complications for auditing and disclosure arising from recent enforcement trends

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • How can companies and their counsel use environmental audits to improve compliance and soften the impact of a government enforcement action?
  • What are the best practices for counsel to advise clients that are considering utilizing environmental compliance audits?
  • What are the expected costs and risks of environmental self-audits from a legal standpoint?