Business Law

A frightening amount of money is spent every year in litigation and other anguish over contaminated sites. In terms of harm to human health and the environment, contaminated sites are far less important than clean air, clean water, climate change and urban sprawl. But because of the regulato…

How do computers affect the environmental footprint of law offices?It’s easy to add up the negatives. Computers and their peripherals (printers, modems, cables, hubs, etc.) have large resource demands, pollute indoor air and create hazardous waste. Computers chew up power, paper and ot…

Last summer, media across the country reacted with astonishment to our articles revealing the bans on clotheslines in many subdivisions and condos (see July 26 07 blog). Ontario has the power, under its Energy Conservation Leadership Act to wipe out such clothesline restrictions, but didn…

Climate change, class actions, contaminated sites and water again dominated 2007 for environmental practitioners. The biggest international news was the increasing urgency of climate change. The release of the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change swept away any rema…

The City of Toronto has taken another step towards a Community Right to Know bylaw for toxic emissions. This would be the first such bylaw in Canada, and might beat the province to the punch on its promised new toxics law. 300 large facilities in Toronto already report their emissions throug…

  On January 7, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Teck Cominco, a Canadian mining giant, is subject to U.S. pollution laws because Canadian slag washed into U.S. waters. This sets an important precedent for other cross-boundary pollution. For more than 100 years, Teck and its predec…

The National Round Table on Environment and Economy today issued an refreshingly hardheaded report: Getting to 2050: Canada’s Transition to a Low-emission Future. The report is a rebuke and a challenge to the absence of federal leadership on climate change, and to our failure to take concret…

When contamination flows offsite, can a subsequent purchaser of the downgradient parcel successfully sue the upgradient polluter? Most caselaw suggests that the buyer is out of luck. Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, is still a fundamental principle of real estate law. The buyer who asks …

Homeowners frequently want to sue their insurers for fuel oil contamination, even if they only have third party coverage. Several years ago, many insurers amended their policies to remove first party (own property) coverage for oil spills, unless homeowners paid a special premium. Few paid t…

After ducking out of an earlier public session, Canada’s Environment Minister announced Canada’s climate change program at Bali yesterday. His big news? Canada will collect some more information about how many greenhouse gases we emit.    It’s hard to get excited about this…