Insights

Washington – June 6, 2024: Crowell & Moring earned 78 rankings for 67 lawyers, as well as 41 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2024 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – June 1, 2023: Crowell & Moring earned 82 rankings for 68 lawyers across 48 categories, as well as 37 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2023 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – January 11, 2023: Crowell & Moring has published Litigation Forecast 2023: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know for the Coming Year. The 11th-annual Litigation Forecast focuses on trends in litigation that are playing out in specific jurisdictions around the globe. 

With the coming of the new presidential administration, state antitrust enforcement is poised to intensify. We expect both Republican and Democratic Attorneys General (AGs) to actively pursue antitrust investigations and litigation. They will fill in where the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission reduce focus but are also sure to work, including on a bipartisan basis, with their federal counterparts. Below, we explore how state AGs are likely to shape the antitrust landscape in the coming four years, and the areas where we anticipate significant enforcement activity.

After a somewhat turbulent adoption process, on 25 July 2024 the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“CS3D”)[1] finally entered into force.  The CS3D requires certain companies operating in the EU/EEA, to identify and address adverse impacts on human rights and the environment as regards their actions both inside and outside of Europe. This includes obligations for companies to issue publicly available annual statements on human rights and environmental issues, and to adopt and put into effect transition plans for climate change mitigation.

EU member states must transpose the directive into national law within two years of its entry into force.  Compliance with the Directive will be introduced in stages, as follows:

Washington, D.C.-based senior counsel in the firm's Environment & Natural Resources Group, Robert Meyers, talks with Law360 regarding Congress' approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which is likely going to be vetoed by President Obama. With a veto looming, Meyers offers that Congress may look at other areas, such as transmission siting and grid reliability, that don’t have the political history of Keystone and could have some reasonable prospect of success in 2015. "I imagine the House will reach out in a bipartisan manner on the type of economic issues where you can get that, as opposed to those that boil down to environmental issues," Meyers said.

Robert Meyers, Washington, D.C.-based senior counsel in the firm's Environment & Natural Resources Group, discusses potential new fuel economy regulations after record Clean Air Act fines were levied last year for greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy reporting violations. "In broad brush, I think this is a signal of increasing scrutiny, and I would attribute some of it to the fact of the suggested rulemaking," Meyers said.

Washington, D.C.-based partner and steering committee member of the Environment & Natural Resources Group, Kirsten L. Nathanson, discusses a challenge to a federal rule cutting toxic emissions from power plants, which is one of the issues facing the Supreme Court this term. The federal rule in question limits toxic pollution, such as mercury, from coal- and oil-fired power plants, and is being appealed but 23 states and industry groups. Nathanson argues that, "The regulated community believes it was completely irrational and inappropriate for EPA to ignore the high cost," adding, "we will see if the Supreme Court latches onto it."

When it comes to environmental laws and regulations, the only question is when—not if—the courts will be asked to resolve contentious issues. Such is the case with a rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, under the Clean Air Act, to limit the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuel-fired power plants.

The Household and Commercial Products Association’s (HCPA’s) Pesticide Regulation Workshop, organized, hosted, and co-presented by Crowell, is the oldest and largest annual event dedicated to pesticide regulation, compliance, and enforcement under federal and state pesticide laws. This year’s workshop will feature guest speakers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs and Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and from the Natural Resources Defense Council. This year’s workshop will focus on practical information, including what companies need to know in order to get their pesticide products onto the market, keep them there, and avoid business disruptions and penalties. Knowledgeable and experienced presenters will cover the following topics:

Join us for an engaging talk by Andrew Revkin, a Strategic Adviser for Environmental and Science Journalism at the National Geographic Society. Revkin has won most of the top awards in science journalism along with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Revkin has written on global environmental change and risk for more than 30 years, reporting from the North Pole to the White House, the Amazon rain forest to the Vatican. His fourth book is, “Weather: An Illustrated History, from Cloud Atlases to Climate Change."

As 2023 rolls in, what changes can government contractors expect? What will be the focus of the US Government? How should contractors prepare?

Partner Amanda Berman will be presenting the session "Regulatory Roulette: The State of Play Under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Other Major Environmental Statutes" at 10:45 am on Wednesday, March 24th.