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Sinéad Oryszczuk

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Sinéad Oryszczuk is special counsel and solicitor advocate in Covington's London Life sciences and Environment regulatory team. Ms. Oryszczuk’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, Ms. Oryszczuk spent 5 years in the UK's leading specialist energy, environment, and regulatory team.

Ms. Oryszczuk 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. Ms. Oryszczuk 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).

Ms. Oryszczuk 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. Ms. Oryszczuk 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. Ms. Oryszczuk often coordinates multinational projects and advice and regularly liaises and negotiates with regulators on behalf of her clients. On corporate work in particular, Ms. Oryszczuk 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, Ms. Oryszczuk 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.

Contact: Read more about Sinéad OryszczukEmail

The European Commission has published a proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (2021/0104) (“CSRD”), which forms just one part of a comprehensive package of sustainable finance measures (see our blog here).  The Commission has put forward these measures in response to demand for stronger and wider sustainability reporting standards, over and above what the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive currently provides.  The CSRD seeks to mandate sustainability reporting and assurance through the amendment of existing EU laws, including the Transparency Directive, the Accounting Directive, and the Audit Directive.  More fundamentally, according to the Commission, it will move the EU one step closer to realizing its aim of having sustainability reporting be “on a par” with financial reporting, in terms of attached weight and importance.  This is reflected in the change of terminology used in the CSRD proposal, from a focus on “non-financial” information reporting, to “sustainability”.

We cover below the background and detail, but in summary, these are the key elements of the CSRD proposal that corporates should be aware of:

  • Scope: The CSRD reporting requirements will apply to all large EU companies and all listed companies, including listed small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”). This is estimated to cover around 49,000 companies.
  • Reporting: The so-called “double materiality” principle remains, but in-scope companies will now have to report according to mandatory sustainability standards. Simpler and “proportionate” standards will apply to listed SMEs.
  • Audit: The CSRD will require, for the first time, a general EU-wide audit (assurance) requirement for sustainability information.
  • Digitization: The sustainability information must be published in companies’ management reports — and not separately reported — and the information will need to be digitized or “tagged” so it can be incorporated into a planned European Single Access Point.
  • Timing: If the proposal is adopted and standards can be agreed in line with current ambitious estimates, large in-scope companies must comply from financial years starting on or after 1 January 2023, publishing reports from 2024; whilst SMEs have to comply from 1 January 2026.

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Continue Reading The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive Proposal: What Companies Need to Know

The European Commission has presented a package of key enabling legislation on sustainable finance (the “Sustainable Finance Package”).  This includes the much-awaited first technical screening criteria under the Taxonomy Regulation — outlined in the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act (“TCDA”) — and a proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD”), which significantly revises and expands on the existing Non-Financial Reporting Directive’s remit and disclosure rules for corporates. While the former is directly aimed at financial institutions and investors, and the latter at large and listed entities, the package has broader implications for all corporates.
Continue Reading The EU’s Green Capitalism Takes Shape: Taxonomy Screening Criteria and Corporate Sustainability Reporting