Ronald Olivier

Senior associate
Portret

Ronald is a specialist in administrative law, 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.

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, Radiocommunications Agency and SodM). In addition, he assists provincial, regional and municipal bodies and environmental protection agencies with their enforcement activities.

Ronald 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.


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).


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.


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.

Working in the areas of law

Experience

Adviseren

Advising and litigating on mining legislation, such as seismic surveys, natural gas, geothermal, CO2 storage, drilling and extraction plans;

Adviseren

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;

Assisting

provincial, regional and municipal governments and environmental agencies with various enforcement activities relating to unlicensed discharges of highly alarming substances;

Advising

on an exemption within the framework of the Nature Protection Act in connection with the proposed demolition of buildings, which are currently used by bats for shelter or protection

Regulatory advice

on the production of hydrogen;

Advising

on the consequences of new environmental and other regulations, including emissions standards and sector-specific regulations applicable to a business;

Advising

on permit issuance for projects causing nitrogen deposition (Nature Conservation Act);

Advising

governments and environmental services on enforcement and other administrative law options in the situation of bankrupt factories (both actual and imminent);

Advising

on spatial planning and zoning issues relating to wind parks;

He has also assisted with environmental permit applications.

Recommendations

Legal 500 2024

Energy: Regulatory, Band 2 & Rising Star

'Van der Feltz Advocaten has sound knowledge and a clear focus on the specifics of certain industries.’ ‘A team of very flexible and devoted lawyers with good, in-depth knowledge of the industry and capability to quickly acquire new, often technical knowledge, where necessary.’

Memberships

  • 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)