Energy Regulatory

The energy sector is defined by complexity. We help clients unlock opportunity - simplifying and shaping the regulatory and policy landscape to support their commercial goals.

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With a presence in key energy hubs around the world, Hogan Lovells offers clients global regulatory counsel across the natural gas, LNG, oil, nuclear, electricity, renewables, hydrogen, and petrochemical sectors. Our team advises on compliance with energy regulation frameworks imposed by U.S. agencies such as FERC, NRC, and DOE and their international counterparts across the world. Where change and complexity collide, we help clients chart a clear path forward – ensuring regulation supports, rather than slows, their business objectives.

We guide clients through the complex regulatory approval process for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, multinational project development, and global compliance strategies for energy companies with regulated assets. We remove unnecessary barriers, align regulation with commercial objectives and create opportunities for long-term growth.

Our work spans due diligence, licensing, permitting, and engagement with regulatory authorities across jurisdictions. We counsel financial institutions on energy investments, innovators on bringing emerging technologies to market, established companies on strategic expansion, and new entrants navigating regulatory landscapes for the first time. This helps accelerate market entry and enable innovation through change.

In the natural gas sector, we have a leading pipeline-focused practice representing some of the largest pipeline companies in the world. Our lawyers represent pipelines, LNG project developers and other companies in complex FERC rate and complaint proceedings, all FERC and DOE compliance matters, multibillion-dollar greenfield infrastructure projects and cross-border energy transactions.

In the power sector, we assist with rate design, distributed generation, climate regulation, and new technologies. Our team also has significant experience securing regulatory approvals for transmission projects covering siting, environmental reviews, public lands, interconnection, EPC contracts, and related finance and tax matters.

Our nuclear energy team supports facility owners, operators, developers, vendors, and investors in navigating technical, jurisdiction-specific regulatory regimes globally, including radioactive materials, non-power reactors, small modular reactors, and emerging fusion technologies. We advise across the full lifecycle of nuclear projects, from licensing and siting through operation, compliance, enforcement, and decommissioning,

In today’s interconnected and increasingly competitive energy market, we help our energy clients manage risk, overcome regulatory hurdles, and achieve competitive advantage.

FERC Enforcement and Compliance

Nuclear

Pipeline Regulation

As energy markets and technology evolve, antiquated and unfair laws and regulations threaten to stifle market innovation – and the future of your business.

Intransigent government decision-making. Unnecessarily aggressive or unwise regulation. We can help you change the laws and regulations to protect and grow your business. Whether your interest is renewable energy, fossil fuels, project finance, taxes, or market preservation, we know how to work your ideas through complex statutory and regulatory requirements – or change them. Let us address your concern and advocate for your ideas.

In this regulatory environment, energy companies must have strong compliance programs in place and have a defense strategy in the event of a U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) investigation.

Our lawyers provide compliance counseling to utilities, energy marketers, electric cooperatives, natural gas and petroleum pipelines, and independent power producers in FERC regulated markets. We help develop internal codes of conduct for inter-affiliate transactions and information sharing and address antitrust concerns.

Our lawyers are highly experienced in dealing with external investigations. When noncompliance or misconduct allegations arise, the practice has a rapid response protocol that assembles a multidisciplinary team to ascertain the facts, minimize client liability, and develop corrective action to remedy noncompliance.

We advise nuclear clients on the full spectrum of regulatory matters before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and international agencies. Our work spans licensing, license amendments, compliance, investigations, enforcement, and decommissioning. We counsel on foreign ownership, nuclear liability, financial qualifications, and export controls, with experience on first-of-a-kind projects, including advanced and small modular reactors.

With deep relationships across U.S. agencies such as the NRC, DOE, and DOD, and regulators worldwide, we offer strategic insight on precedent-setting issues. Our team includes former NRC and DOE lawyers and technical professionals, enabling practical, informed guidance.

We represent a broad range of industry players including utilities, innovators, fuel cycle operators, and radiopharmaceutical manufacturers, providing regulatory, policy, and transactional support throughout the nuclear lifecycle.

For pipelines that have commenced operations, our lawyers have participated in countless NGA section 4 general rate cases. We understand that businesses operating in the energy sector must navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape in order to function effectively. Rather than allowing the regulatory process to drive your business, our lawyers can help to develop strategies that achieve its objectives while minimizing regulatory risk. Our in-depth knowledge of regulatory issues, coupled with our understanding of business, economic, and legal objectives, enables us to determine when settlement is advantageous and when litigation is the most effective option.

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