Environmental Law and Mining Law
Environmental law is one of the main areas of the law in which our firm specializes. In general, the attorneys at our firm who are engaged in this area of the law have focused on this field since entering the practice of law. Among the professional activities they are engaged in with respect to this field are the following:
- tracking of legislative and regulatory changes coming from Czech and EU governments, ministries and administrative bodies (e.g. Board of Appel of Ministries)
- lecturing and publishing activities involving state authorities, municipalities and businesses
- teaching at universities
Our clients have included and continue to include administrative bodies in charge of national parks and protected areas and the managers of state funds. We pay special attention to environmental concerns in all of our consulting work for municipalities, which have significant responsibilities in this area.
We are able to offer our clients the benefits of our practical experience working with municipal authorities, government agencies and state-owned enterprises. We have worked "from the inside". The firm’s senior partners have had a number of years of direct involvement with the operation of local governmental bodies and city councils and they have spent part of their professional career in the state sector.
Our firm has a general legal practice (e.g. criminal, commercial, civil and labor law) and, because of our strength in the increasingly important environmental law field, we are to bring our knowledge of environmental regulations and affairs into these other areas of our practice as well as an added benefit to our clients.
We are aware that the environment law field also has a number of sub-specialties and, as a result we assign our attorneys their own responsibilities in monitoring specific areas of environmental legislation and environmental law. Such identified sub-areas of specialization in the environmental field are the following;
- mining law (counseling, representation in administrative proceedings and bringing actions especially especially in proceedings for the determination of mining areas and the authorisation of mining activities)
- protection of public health – in particular from the effects of noise, vibration and dust (including dealing with neighbor noise complaints)
- Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) – how buildings and development might impact the environment (including the evaluation of interference with sites that have been designated as of European historical or cultural importance)
- protection of the natural landscape and nature reserves (disputes related to Natura 2000 sites, proceedings related to exceptions from the protection of specially protected flora and fauna and interventions to protect the character of the natural landscape, etc.; this includes compensation for damage caused by specially protected fauna)
- forestry law, including assistance to the owners of forestry assets when seeking financial compensation
- water law, incl. water supply and sewerage issues
