Energy
- Representing bulk fuel storage terminals and refineries in responding to the California State Water Resources Control Board’s orders to investigate and sample for dozens of PFAS chemicals.
- Representing one of the largest companies in the world and the second largest oil company in the United States by revenue in legal challenges to California’s de facto ban on well stimulation treatment operations.
- Representing oil and gas exploration and production companies in legal challenges to the City of Los Angeles Oil and Gas Drilling Ordinance, which immediately bans new oil and gas extraction activities and requires the removal of existing operations after an amortization period.
- Representing an oil and gas company that operates in the Inglewood Oil Field in opposing a City of Culver City ordinance that seeks to amortize and terminate oil and gas production in Los Angeles, including enforcement of vested property rights.
- Represented oil and gas operators, royalty owners, and trade associations in CEQA and constitutional challenges to oil and gas provisions in the Ventura County General Plan Update. The General Plan Update sought to strip oil and gas operators of their vested rights under existing permits and impose unlawful restrictions on existing operations. The case settled on favorable terms.
- Represented a multinational oil and gas corporation and one of the largest public companies worldwide in a challenge to a countywide ballot initiative that would immediately prohibit well stimulation and the drilling of new wells, and would impose a sunset date for the injection or impoundment of produced water. If implemented, the ballot initiative would shut down all operations in the eight-largest oil field in California. Secured a victory in the Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court.
- Represented a natural gas, oil exploration and production company, which produces nearly 25% of California’s oil and natural gas, in a legal challenge to the California Geologic Energy Management Division’s decision to subject ministerial permits to drill new wells to discretionary environmental review.
- Defended one of the world’s largest private sector energy companies against multiple lawsuits brought by various California municipalities, who were alleging claims for public and private nuisance, product liability, and deceptive sales while also attempting to shift liability for national and international climate change policy choices onto energy producers. The municipalities sought damages tied to greenhouse-gas emissions between 1965 and 2015. The client was dismissed from the lawsuits with prejudice.
Proposition 65
- Counsel for the largest U.S. retail corporation, and largest company worldwide by revenue, defending the company against dozens of claims involving alleged exposures to heavy metals, bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and other Proposition 65-listed chemicals.
- Counsel for one of North America’s largest food companies, defending the company in all Proposition 65 cases.
- Counsel for cosmetic companies in multiple pending Proposition 65 lawsuits alleging exposure to airborne and unbound titanium dioxide in cosmetic products.