Sinéad Oryszczuk is special counsel and solicitor advocate in Covington's London Life sciences and Environment regulatory team. Sinéad’s UK and EU law practice is diverse, spanning energy, environment, life sciences, consumer products, and technology sectors. She supports a variety of internal and in-house teams including corporate, real estate, projects, construction, planning, health and safety, IP, insurance, and banking. She is experienced in contentious matters, assisting clients before criminal, civil, administrative and specialist tribunals, and non-contentious (regulatory, transactional/M&A) matters. She has advised in relation to some of the UK’s most high profile recent environment cases up to Court of Appeal level, as well as large group actions, and has brought cases before the European Court in life sciences matters. Prior to joining the firm, Sinéad spent 5 years in the UK's leading specialist energy, environment, and regulatory team.
Sinéad has broad experience in traditional environment areas such as contaminated land and allocation of environment liabilities in transactions, permitting, waste, climate change, species-specific requirements, emissions, and contentious work including prosecutions relating to large scale pollution incidents, environmental damage, and general regulatory and subject specific ad-hoc advice. Sinéad also provides advice on specialist scientific and technical regulatory aspects spanning a variety of sectors. She has built up particular expertise in chemicals law and hazardous/regulated substances (e.g. REACH, CLP, RoHS, biocides, nuclear/radiological), novel technologies and agri-tech (e.g. advanced genetic engineering, GMOs, nano), and corporate/accounting and regulatory energy and environment reporting and efficiency (e.g. EU ETS, CRC, mandatory energy audits (ESOS) and non-financial reporting).
Sinéad advises day-to-day on transactional matters and liability (including director/officer and parent company), land contamination and hazardous substances, and in multinational competitive bids. She has a broad experience including in relation to manufacturing and waste facilities, energy storage projects, wind farms, grid projects, redevelopments and remediation projects, landfills, mines and minerals operations, and nuclear and radioactive materials facilities. She has acted for a variety of parties including buyers/sellers, tenants/landlords, bidders, lenders, insurers, developers, authorities/regulators, trustees, insolvency practitioners, and private equity/funders. Sinéad provides specialist corporate due diligence (including vendor due diligence). She often acts as specialist outside counsel and has drafted bespoke instruments including transfer of liability deeds, contractor T&Cs, site remediation/investigation/access agreements, as well as environment indemnities and warranties. Sinéad often coordinates multinational projects and advice and regularly liaises and negotiates with regulators on behalf of her clients. On corporate work in particular, Sinéad assists very large multinationals (including global asset funds) with complex organisational structures through national and international compliance scenarios, including on corporate reporting and carbon .trading.
On contentious work, Sinéad has taken leading roles in some of the UK’s largest and most high profile environment cases, often building on her science background in respect of issues concerning hazardous substances. She regularly defends in relation to large domestic civil group actions relating to environment issues. More recently she has acted in contentious life sciences cases relating to medicinal products including before the European Court and national regulators, e.g. the UK’s NICE.
Practice Areas
- Contentious: criminal litigation/prosecutions (defence), civil group actions, nuisance, EU Court applications, judicial review, specialist tribunals (e.g. appeals against permitting, enforcement, NICE decisions), inquests, regulator notifications, FOIA/EIR requests and objections.
- Life sciences: advising pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and cosmetic manufacturers and trade associations on a wide range of regulatory, compliance, transactional and legislative matters. In particular providing specialist advice on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources (Nagoya Protocol) and genetically modified organisms.
- Environment transactional: corporate and real estate support work in particular transfer and allocation of liability (including in insolvency situations), negotiation of indemnities/warranties, environment due diligence, lease and purchase agreement terms, and D&O and parent liability.
- Consumer products and technology: product stewardship matters throughout product lifecycle from design through to demonstrations/promotion, use, repair, end of life, waste and returns and recalls; due diligence on product launches in particular on electronic devices and smart products (e.g. on chemicals and regulated substances, WEEE, eco-design/-labelling, energy efficiency, product claims, packaging, batteries, conflict minerals), supply chain due diligence and contractual arrangements; contract manufacturing agreements; technical documents; product markings; and bespoke training to technology and telecoms clients.
- Projects and remediation: environment advice relating to range of projects (new builds, land remediation, site investigations, renewables (wind farms, solar), energy storage, grid connections/interconnectors, mining/minerals, landfill, nuclear) including on species matters, environment permitting/authorisations/exemptions, waste, access issues and agreements, contractor agreements and T&Cs,
- General advisory/regulatory: energy efficiency/performance/audits, environment and non-financial reporting, carbon trading/taxes, climate change, emissions, waste.
Back
