Ronald is a specialist in environmental law and enforcement law. His clients come from both the private sector and the public sector, and include regulators, environmental protection agencies and special interest groups. Because of this, he is skilled at assessing the various interests involved in a situation and quickly finding concrete and clear solutions for his clients. In cases of relationship breakdown, he builds bridges between the various positions to reach as favourable a result as possible.

He regularly represents companies (particularly in the chemical sector) that find themselves dealing with changing regulations and administrative and criminal enforcement measures by criminal prosecutors or Dutch regulators (including environmental protection agencies, the SZW Inspectorate, ILT and SODM). In addition, he assists provincial, regional and municipal bodies and environmental protection agencies with their enforcement activities. He is active in the energy law sector as well, often advising on and litigating administrative law and environmental law issues. He has extensive experience in matters relating to onshore and offshore gas production, biofuels, geothermal energy and wind energy.

After graduating from Leiden University with an LLM in Civil Law and an LLM in Constitutional Law and Administrative Law, Ronald worked at the Dutch law firm of Stibbe in Amsterdam for several years before bringing his expertise to Van der Feltz Advocaten in The Hague.

Ronald is the author of the article-by-article commentary in two parts of Kluwer’s Milieurecht Totaal: the Offshore Wind Energy Act and Chapter 17 of the Environmental Protection Act. He also writes the case annotations for various legal periodicals reporting on construction law cases (BR and TBR), administrative law cases (Gemeentestem) and others (OA).

He is a member of the subcommittee of the Dutch Wind Energy Association (NWEA) that handles environmental law issues arising out of onshore wind energy.

Industry focus

• (Sustainable) energy
• Industrial sector
• Government

Areas of expertise

• Constitutional and administrative law
• Energy
• Spatial planning and environmental law

Experience

Here are a few examples illustrating Ronald’s experience:

• He has advised mining companies on onshore and offshore test drilling for natural gas and also litigated on their behalf
• He has done the same regarding their production plans for natural gas production;
• Large companies producing dangerous substances have retained his services to handle enforcement measures taken under environmental, safety and employment conditions legislation, including the Dangerous Substances Decree (BRZO), the ATEX directive, regulations relating to noxious emissions and unusual incidents, the Transport of Dangerous Substances Act, licensing requirements, environmental protection regulations (Activiteitensbesluit) and working conditions legislation;
• He has assisted provincial, regional and municipal governments and environmental agencies with various enforcement activities relating to unlicensed discharges of highly alarming substances;
• He has advised on the consequences of new environmental and other regulations, including emissions standards and sector-specific regulations applicable to a business;
• He has also assisted with environmental permit applications.

Professional associations

• Member of the Administrative Law Association (VAR)
• Member of the Environmental Law Association
• Member of the Dutch Energy Law Association (NeVER)
• Member of the Construction Law Association (VBR)
• Member of the Dutch Lawyers’ Association (NJV)
• Member of the Leiden Legal Society (LJG)