Our cross-border Climate Change and Emissions Trading Practice is not a sub-group of a specialty area like energy or environment: we have developed a team of our top business lawyers from a variety of fields to address the challenges and opportunities in this complex, multifaceted field. The result is an interdisciplinary group that is genuinely active.

With a specific focus on building on our well-developed business law capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to handle everything from the most basic matters of regulatory interpretation to highly complicated fund structuring and tax planning

We draw from our depth of the firm’s top-ranked expertise in a variety of fields, including

• energy and renewable energy
• oil and gas
• clean technology
• greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation
• environment
• emissions trading
• carbon finance
• governance and disclosure
• corporate finance and managed assets
• mergers and acquisitions
• project and leveraged finance
• commercial lending
• derivatives and structured products
• real estate
• infrastructure
• taxation
• litigation and dispute resolution

GHG regulatory regimes generally require large industrial emitters to measure, monitor and report GHG emissions, and at the end of a particular set compliance period, ensure they have enough government-issued emission allowances to cover their emissions during that period. In advising on GHG regulatory regimes and their complexities, we help our clients understand their GHG emissions reporting obligations, evaluate the impact of existing emission caps on their businesses and potential acquisitions, and manage the risks associated with future compliance obligations. We also advise on the broader implications of existing and anticipated cap-and-trade regimes.

Our group also advises clients on the implications of carbon taxes, another mechanism designed to mitigate GHG emissions by levying a tax either on the production, import and distribution of fossil fuels, or, more commonly, on the purchase and use of fossil fuels. Canada’s first two carbon taxes were implemented in Quebec and British Columbia. These taxes affect a wide spectrum of our clients, including those that have few actual GHG emissions.