Profil complet
Matthew is a Senior Associate in the Environmental team in our Sydney office.
Matthew has more than a decade of experience across South Africa and Australia. Matthew’s practice covers a broad range of areas in environment and planning law including project development and approval, waste and water management, incident and pollution responses, and contaminated land management.
Matthew has significant experience in advising clients on matter relating to contamination and emerging contaminants, and in particular PFAS. Matthew is also experienced in environment and planning litigation in the NSW Land and Environment Court, the Supreme Court, Federal Court and High Court.
Matthew is a member of Environmental Planning Law Association NSW and the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law. Matthew was recognised by Best Lawyers in the Australia 2023 edition of ‘Ones to Watch’ for Environment and Planning.
Expérience
Contaminated land – advising client on PFAS contamination at multiple sites across Australia. Worked closely with the client to develop and implement a national strategy to address and mitigate risk relating to historic PFAS contamination which included: a communications strategy with relevant government and private stakeholders; detailed site investigation and remediation planning for affected sites; and organisational strategies for managing litigation risks. The works also included defending claims brought against the client in the Supreme Court.
Waste contracts – advising on, drafting and negotiating waste services contracts on behalf of several local councils in NSW.
Planning litigation – acting for various clients in relating to proceedings in the NSW Land and Environmental Court relating to the granting of development consents, the judicial review of planning decisions made by consent authorities, and the prosecution of compliance issued under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW).
Projects (Renewables) – advising various clients (including developers and lenders) regarding planning pathways and regulatory compliance with environment and planning approvals relating to the development of a utility scale wind energy facility.
Incident response – assisting clients to respond to incidents and regulatory investigation including, clean up notices, regulatory orders, reporting obligations, information requests, and submissions.
Transactions – advising on environmental legal aspects of numerous transactions and in relation to due diligence processes for those transactions, across several sectors, including energy, mining and resources, chemical manufacturing, waste management, and agriculture.
