What types of businesses confront environmental liability exposure?
Businesses of many types confront environmental liability exposure. For instance, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act — or CERCLA — identifies four categories of parties who, regardless of fault, must pay to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances: (1) current owners or operators of a site where a hazardous substance has been released; (2) past owners or operators of a site at the time hazardous substances were released; (3) any person who arranged for the disposal, transport or treatment of hazardous substances released at a site; and (4) any person who transports a hazardous substance to a site from which there has been a release. Case law interpreting CERCLA has enlarged this list of liable parties to include successor corporations, lessees of current and former owners, corporate officers who were active in site operations, active shareholders, parent corporations, lenders and trustees. As a consequence of this broad classification
