Transportation

Morrison & Foerster’s Transportation Group provides comprehensive and strategic services to all types of transportation sector clients, whether they, or their products or services, operate underground or on the surface, or in the air or on the sea. We draw on our group’s significant cross-disciplinary experience to understand the enabling technologies that permit our transportation-sector clients to meet their business objectives.

We provide in-depth counseling on transportation-related regulatory, litigation, environmental, energy, infrastructure, product liability, finance, and safety issues. We have decades of experience representing aviation and aerospace clients, including major airlines, airports, aerospace manufacturers. Following on the current transformation of the automotive industry, we advise on the full range of legal issues arising from the emerging autonomous systems space including autonomous vehicles, robotics and drones/unmanned aircraft systems. We also know the traditional automotive sector, providing counsel on how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, state, and local regulations will shape technological innovations in transportation, including the deployment of sophisticated transportation systems and networks.

Our Transportation Group’s key capabilities are highlighted below:

Regulatory

• Shape global regulatory frameworks for manned, unmanned, and autonomous vehicles: sea, surface, or air
• Investigate and mitigate risks arising from aircraft and motor vehicle safety issues and recalls
• Counsel on international environmental and transport standards
• Litigate regulatory issues as necessary to meet client objectives

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Safety

• Provide safety analysis of sophisticated, technology-based, integrated transportation vehicles, systems, and networks
• Offer risk management and litigation avoidance counseling
• Respond to transportation accidents and incidents, coordinating multi-agency onsite investigations and associated litigation
• Advise on issues in specialty insurance markets for auto, aviation, and rail
• Litigate – we are go-to trial and national coordinating counsel for transportation sector clients

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Emerging Technologies

• Support clients integrating new and disruptive technologies into transportation, including vehicles and infrastructure
• Provide strategic advice on the challenges presented by regulation of rapidly advancing software and hardware platforms for transportation
• Anticipate and overcome legal obstacles when clients develop, acquire, or adopt new technologies and IP assets
• Help commercialize, divest, and monetize transportation technologies

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Environment and Energy

• Counsel on and litigate Clean Air Act and state air regulation, including permitting, compliance, and litigation
• Counsel on and litigate federal, state, and local laws and regulations for development and operation of transportation systems and networks, including NEPA and counterpart state environmental review statutes, as well as water quality (stormwater), species, and other laws and regulations
• Advise on clean and renewable energy programs and regulations for electric vehicles
• Manage and minimize the environmental and health risks associated with transport of hazardous materials
• Counsel and litigate on pipeline permitting and compliance

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Mergers & Acquisitions / Corporate Finance

• Connect companies and funding sources, including forming private investment partnerships and participate in financings from early stage seed rounds to pre-IPO
• Represent emerging growth companies and investors in the transportation sector with cutting-edge technologies, including software, e-commerce, cybersecurity, data analytics, robotics, drones, and other automated vehicles
• Work with people founding, funding, and growing the transportation industry

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Competition/Antitrust

• Provide unparalleled expertise in antitrust issues affecting regulated and partially regulated industries, particularly in the airline sector
• Represent leaders in the airline, railroad, and freight sectors in significant merger reviews, government investigations, and civil litigation
• Recognized leader in matters involving the intersection of antitrust and technology

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Infrastructure

• Advise on transactional and regulatory matters in the development, financing, and purchase and sale of major transportation facilities and large-scale public works
• Understand the strategic and legal challenges in developing large and often controversial transportation projects
• Represent airlines, airports, and public-private partnerships in the development of public facilities, such as airports and public transit
• Counsel concerning evolving issues in energy and transportation, and on the relationship between trade and the environment

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