FAS 5: Accounting for Contingencies and Environmental Liabilities

DAVID T. BUENTE, JR. is the head of the firm’s environmental group and represents clients in complex federal environmental litigation, legislative and rulemaking matters, with an emphasis on Clean Air Act, Superfund, environmental criminal and toxic tort matters. Mr. Buente joined the firm in 1990 from the U.S. Department of Justice where he was the Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division from 1985 to 1990, directing all federal civil and criminal environmental enforcement litigation. Prior to that, he handled a broad range of federal environmental trial and appellate litigation for EPA and other federal agencies as a Justice Department trial attorney and also served with the Interior Department and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. 

Mr. Buente has represented a number of corporations in complex federal environmental enforcement matters with Justice and EPA, including American Electric Power, Cinergy, General Electric, Georgia Pacific, Ford Motors, Honeywell and Tysons Food, and advised a number of trade associations on diverse environmental issues. He is a member of the American Bar Association's Sections on Environment, Energy and Resources and on Litigation, has served as Vice-Chair on numerous ABA Committees and is currently Vice-Chair of the Environmental Litigation Committee. 

Mr. Buente has been cited in a number of surveys of private sector lawyers, including: Chambers USA Leading Lawyers (ranked tier one), and Who’s Who Legal USA: Environment.

LAURA L. LEONARD focuses her practice on transfers and allocations of environmental risk in a variety of settings. Laura has extensive experience coordinating diligence and advising on contractual allocations in a wide variety of merger and acquisition and venture capital transactions on behalf of buyers, sellers and lenders, providing structuring advice to minimize successor environmental liability, assisting with respect to SEC reporting of environmental matters and counseling with respect to brownfields redevelopment and environmental insurance

GAYLE S. KOCH, head of The Brattle Group’s Environmental/Mass Tort Practice, has over 25 years of consulting experience focused largely on environmental, product liability, and insurance related issues. She has substantial experience in the estimation of environmental and product liabilities in connection with bankruptcies, insurance claims, acquisitions and divestitures, disclosures, litigation, settlements, and strategic planning. She also serves as the technical contact for ASTM International’s standards on environmental cost estimation and environmental disclosure, as well as a forthcoming standard on climate change disclosure. She has served as a testifying expert on cases involving liability estimation, insurance valuation, allocation, cost recovery and NCP consistency, disclosure, and ability to pay. 

Ms. Koch is the Programs Vice Chair for the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) Environmental Disclosure Committee, and is a Director of the New England Women in Energy and Environment (NEWIEE). Ms. Koch received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.S. in Humanities and Engineering (in the Science, Technology and Society Program) from M.I.T., and an M.S. in Management Science (concentrations in applied economics, corporate strategy, and management of technological innovation) from the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T. She is located in The Brattle Group’s Cambridge, Massachusetts office (email: Gayle.Koch@brattle.com or phone: 617.864.7900).

George Hansen is a business consultant in the areas of complex claims and risk. He is a co-founder of The Claro Group, LLC, a financial advisory firm formed out of a Big 5 accounting/consulting firm, where he was a managing partner. 

George has over 15 years of experience assisting clients with valuation and valuation methodologies for environmental and toxic tort liabilities in the context of transactions, litigation, and financial reporting. He has an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon’s Tepper School and holds a BS in Engineering Science from Georgia Tech.

C. Gregory Rogers, J.D., CPA is President and founder of Advanced Environmental Dimensions, LLC. Mr. Rogers is recognized in Best Lawyers in America in the field of environmental law. He is author of Financial Reporting of Environmental Liabilities and Risks after Sarbanes-Oxley (Wiley, 2005), past chairman of the American Bar Association's Environmental Disclosure Committee, and one of 30 national experts contributing to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation and report to Congress on Environmental Disclosures (July 2004).