Chemicals
With worldwide experience and capabilities, the Squire Sanders global chemicals group can help you manage your industry concerns and capitalize on growth opportunities anywhere in the world.
Our lawyers have counseled chemical industry leaders for decades, providing advice to manufacturers, marketers and distributors. Today, approximately 70 of our lawyers have substantial experience serving the chemicals industry.
Drawing on the expertise of lawyers in our corporate, environmental, intellectual property, litigation, regulatory and capital markets practice groups, our range of services is comprehensive. What’s more, our global chemicals lawyers are among the industry’s most seasoned professionals – several of our lawyers earned their doctorate degrees in chemistry or chemical engineering.
Antitrust, Competition & International Trade
Corporate Transactions, Finance & Governance
Environmental, Health & Safety
Intellectual Property
Litigation
Toxic Tort
General Counsel Roundtable
Antitrust, Competition & International Trade
We offer chemical-industry clients more than two decades of experience advising on the ever-growing competition-regulatory structures around the world. Our expertise extends to problems that may arise in mergers, acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, privatizations of and investments in state-owned enterprises, civil and criminal price-fixing matters, vertical restraints matters, issues of consumer protection and a wide range of related matters.
- Advised The Clorox Company on issues relating to the biodegradability of its detergents, including labeling issues in light of changes in EU legislation.
- Counseled a large Japan-based chemical company in an antidumping complaint procedure before the European Commission.
- Advised UOP LLC in a state aid procedure before the European Commission resulting in a finding of state aid against France in the petroleum sector.
Corporate Transactions, Finance & Governance
Our corporate lawyers provide counsel and serve the transactional needs of large public and private chemical companies around the world. Approximately 300 corporate lawyers provide services ranging from day-to-day interaction with corporate personnel to participation in a variety of complex business transactions.
- Represented Ashland Inc. in its US$3.3 billion acquisition of Hercules Incorporated.
- Advised Goodrich Corporation in the US$1.4 billion auction sale of its performance materials (specialty chemicals) division to a private equity group. The division had approximately US$1.2 billion in sales from 32 plants in 10 countries.
- Counseled OM Group, Inc. in its €1.2 billion acquisition of the specialty chemical business of Degussa. The cash purchase price was raised by a bond offering, an equity offering and the sale of certain businesses.
Environmental, Health & Safety
Our environmental practice began back when the US government’s principal regulatory tools were the public nuisance doctrine for air pollution and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 for water pollution. This history and the nature of clients’ requirements have led us to draw principally on lawyers with litigation experience to build our environmental practice area. For chemical companies interested in doing business in Europe, we offer the convenience of a single, integrated firm that eliminates the need to engage lawyers in several countries with regard to the details of
REACH – the unified system for the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals – which has radically redefined EU chemicals legislation with the requirement for chemical substances to be registered, and possibly evaluated or specifically authorized, before being placed on the EU market.
- Advised one of the world’s largest chemical companies in connection with a US Resource Conservation and Recovery Act matter.
- Represented a leading producer of ferroalloys in a judicial enforcement action arising under the US Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems permit program.
- Counseled a large chemicals company with respect to the application of China’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS).
Intellectual Property
Increasing globalization and competition combined with developing economies and legal structures have made protection of your company’s intellectual property a top priority. Our intellectual property lawyers can help you ensure that your company’s intellectual property resources are protected on a global basis.
- Represented one of the world’s largest energy companies in obtaining a nationwide injunction blocking a Taiwan-based conglomerate from building a competing US$100 million acetic acid manufacturing plant in Taiwan.
- Advised DuPont in obtaining summary judgment in favor of our client, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of specialty chemicals, in a complex intellectual property case involving a patent for genetically altered crop species.
- Represented Leadscope, Inc. and its founders in their successful defense of claims that the company and its founders had misappropriated trade secrets and their successful countersuit alleging defamation, unfair competition and interference with business relations, resulting in judgment for our clients awarding US$26.5 million in damages and US$7.9 million for attorneys’ fees and costs.
Litigation
For decades, our trial lawyers have defended chemical companies and successfully resolved their business disputes. Dedicated to achieving outstanding results for clients, our nearly 200 experienced trial lawyers counsel and defend chemical-industry clients in failure-to-warn cases, toxic tort matters and other chemical-related personal injury matters. We also have challenged government-proposed rules and listings.
- Represent Bayer Corporation in connection with the defense of product liability matters.
- Counseled one of the world’s largest energy companies in a case alleging that its process design for manufacturing a specialty polymer developed was defective.
- Advised one of the world’s largest energy companies in obtaining an injunction and monetary damages against a former employee who sold company secrets in China.
Toxic Tort
Our toxic tort practice began with the defense of massive numbers of personal injury and wrongful death actions in the 1970s, when our lawyers defended one of the largest manufacturers of asbestos insulation products. From the early 1980s to the present, our practice has expanded to the defense of nearly every chemical and substance that is claimed to be hazardous.
- Advised DuPont in a case alleging US$176 million in damages from a toxic waste plume; a Texas jury delivered a unanimous defense verdict.
- Defended one of the world’s largest energy companies in a class action alleging US$500 million in damages from refinery-related contamination; a defense verdict was returned following an 18-week jury trial.
- Represented a Fortune 50 company in state litigation based on alleged air pollution emanating from one of its facilities; we successfully moved for the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ personal injury and medical monitoring claims.
General Counsel Roundtable
Our General Counsel Roundtable program provides a forum on legal and regulatory issues facing the chemical industry and offers participants an opportunity to discuss common issues and challenges. These roundtables, led by a steering committee of general counsels from major chemicals manufacturers, discuss topics such as investigating fraud in emerging and developed markets, economic development trends in China and the challenges of chemicals regulation from the federal, state and global perspectives.
Companies represented on the steering committee include:
- Ashland Inc.
- BASF
- Cytec Industries Inc.
- Dow Corning
- DuPont
- Hexion Specialty Chemicals
- The Lubrizol Corporation
Read summaries of recent roundtables: