Begonia Filgueira

Partner


+44 (0)7766 911 058
begonia.filgueira@acuitylaw.com

ABOUT
EXPERTISE
WORK

Begonia is an accomplished commercial environment and climate change lawyer with over 20 years’ experience advising companies, developers, the public sector and law firms.

Begonia’s practise covers all aspects of environment and climate change regulation including, waste, water, environmental liabilities, project finance, prosecutions, judicial reviews, green finance, ESG, human rights and climate change governance. Before joining Acuity, Begonia worked at several magic-circle law firms and most recently headed up the Environment Practice at Foot Anstey.

An expert in her field, Begonia is a trusted advisor to Boards, advising on managing environmental risk and enabling resilience through climate change governance. She has also given expert evidence to the House of Lords on new environmental legislation and continues to support Parliamentary Committees with her expertise.

Notably, Begonia is also working on preparing the UK for a post-Brexit world by Co-chairing the now-named Environmental Governance Task Force.

  • Contentious matters such as judicial reviews and environmental prosecutions
  • Advising on environmental liabilities, insurance, waste, contaminated land, water, environmental risk and the environmental elements of project finance
  • Environmental issues relating to the planning process for developers and energy projects
  • Legal compliance, understanding policy and legal changes and preparing businesses for these changes
  • Advising developer clients on the planning moratorium in the Solent following changes in EU case law on nitrates. This included advising on EU law from which the issue derived and how developers could create solutions based on Natural England’s guidance on nitrates neutrality and proposing changes to Natural England’s guidance. Liaising with the Environment Agency, Water Companies and Central Government on the matter
  • Advising a client on judicial review, negotiating with the EA and running and end of waste argument
  • Advising a client on Asbestos liabilities and potential claim against a landlord
  • Advising on a transaction involving a large amount of older properties with Asbestos and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards issues which affected how the financial side of the transaction was structured
  • Advising a client on a potential prosecution under the Producer Responsibility Regime
  • Negotiating and drafting the environmental provisions of the acquisition of the Horlicks site, ex GSK manufacturing site. This was a very complicated transaction which raised contamination issues, water abstraction issues, river quality and environmental insurance
  • Advising a private equity firm on Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) due diligence in order to ascertain compliance and best practice from the firms they invested in. The Issues included environmental compliance and reporting, climate change governance, corporate governance, the formulation of human rights policies and due diligence of human rights related risks in the supply chain
  • Advising a national client on employee environmental activism following the Climate Change strikes in London in 2019