Environmental dispute resolution and hazardous waste cleanups: A cautionary tale of policy implementation

New York State experimented with replacing their litigation-oriented system for achieving toxic dump site cleanup with one promising to lower transaction costs through alternative dispute resolution. Our analysis of outcomes is informed by three generations of implementation work focusing on (1) the motivations and incentives shaping individual behavior, (2) the larger organizational and political factors associated with variation across cases, and (3) the generic properties of policy implements. This mosaic approach to explanation produces, we believe, a more lifelike picture of use to policy makers for understanding the dynamic and interrelated nature of their choices.     

A CRITIQUE OF PROFESSOR CHURCH'S REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF VERTICAL AND CONGLOMERATE MERGERS ON COMPETITION

We discuss Professor Jeffrey Church's report to the EuropeanCommission in 2004 on the effects of vertical restraints andmergers. Although thorough and accurate, the report could bemisinterpreted by practitioners, as it does not emphasize thatmarket power is only a necessary condition for harm to competition,and that most vertical mergers that present the possibilityof competitive harm also present economic efficiencies thatare intrinsic to the integration.     

Identifying Successor Corporations Liable under CERCLA and Pursuing Insurance Coverage for That Liability

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) imposes liability well beyond general corporate successor rules. A company can allocate liability to other Potentially Responsible Parties as more culpable, taking advantage of CERCLA's joint and several liability. Often a source of recovery must be teased from a complex corporate history somehow connected to the site. This article examines the basis for attributing environmental liability to entities within a corporate history, before addressing how even a bankrupt or dissolved target may still have insurance that can be tapped. Similarly, CERCLA's strict liability enables recovery from insurance with some connection to either the target's or the company's corporate history, notwithstanding insurers' non-assignment arguments.