Chemicals
Businesses around the globe that manufacture, process, distribute, and use chemical substances, pesticides, biochemicals, and antimicrobial products turn to the specialized legal expertise of Arnold & Porter's Chemicals team. We offer distinctive skills and integrate the insights of lawyers who held senior leadership positions at the U.S. EPA, CPSC, and other relevant regulatory agencies with those who are the nation's leading practitioners for consumer protection laws. Our team combines scientific knowledge with decades of experience to develop effective strategies that resolve legal challenges specific to the chemical sector. Our comprehensive services span national and international regulatory compliance; consumer product safety issues; technology transactions; acquisition financing; and defense of enforcement proceedings, toxic tort class actions, and novel cases involving public nuisance issues.
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Deep Regulatory Expertise: Compliance counseling on TSCA, FIFRA, EPCRA, FDC Act, OSHA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, REACH, Consumer Product Safety Act, Federal Hazardous Substances Act, and state programs; assistance with comments and responses on proposed regulations and legislation.
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Renowned Toxic Tort Experience: Lead environmental counsel for BP in precedent-setting matters resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; lead or national counsel in high-profile litigation involving PFAS, PFOA, chromium, arsenic, lead, lead paint, mercury, selenium, PCBs, TCE, PCE, DCA, vinyl chloride, and other chemicals.
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Strong Record in Enforcement and Administrative Challenges: Extensive experience drafting comments and responses on proposed regulations and legislation, challenging agency rules, intervening to defend rules against challenges brought by adverse parties, and defending clients in enforcement actions and citizen's suits.
Experience Highlights
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Chemours, as lead environmental counsel, on a range of regulatory, enforcement and litigation matters relating to the presence of chemicals, including one referred to as GenX, in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina attributable to its facility.
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A number of the nation's leading makers of pesticide and antimicrobial products that are regulated under FIFRA by the EPA and the FDA on registration and authorization matters, administrative challenges, and enforcement and penalty proceedings; providing counsel on manufacturing and marketing standards applicable to various manufactured articles; and seeking food additive regulations (tolerances) and exemptions for food packaging and pesticide residues on foods.
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Honeywell, as lead toxic tort litigation counsel, in the defense of a consolidated class action and approximately 52 individual toxic tort suits arising out of the presence of PFOA in the groundwater and municipal water supply of Hoosick Falls, New York.
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Numerous manufacturers and retailers in complying with CPSC notification requirements for regulated chemical issues, negotiating corrective action plans for products covered by such requirements and advising on the broad spectrum of other CPSC matters (e.g., product defect investigations, civil penalty enforcement actions, regulatory compliance counseling, etc.).
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Wolverine World Wide, Inc. in three federal putative class action tort lawsuits and more than 200 individual personal injury and property damage lawsuits arising from the alleged presence of PFAS in drinking water in the vicinity of Rockford, Michigan.
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California Chamber of Commerce in First Amendment challenge to enforcement of warnings for acrylamide.
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Intelligent Global Pooling Systems, the owner/operator of the US's only rental pool for recyclable plastic shipping pallets, regarding domestic and international regulatory counseling and legislative advice for a multiyear initiative to persuade EPA and various US states to fashion regulatory actions that enable the continued use and recycling of responsibly manufactured products, including certain "expedited regulations" required by the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act.
