The Soil and Groundwater Remediation Act, SGRA（hereinafter referred to as the Act） was promulgated and enacted on February 2, 2000. The legislation of the Act was mainly based on the fault liability principle, which caused the awkward situation that in some cases it was difficult to locate the responsible person to perform remediation duties. On February 3, 2010, the Act was substantially amended by the adequate introduction of the principles of liability without fault, status liability and piercing the corporate veil. Therefore, the legal weapons competent authorities may use after the amendment are evidently better improved than before. However, in practice, the local environmental authorities still are not quite familiar with the application of the amended Act, and the courts have some discrepancies in the interpretation of the Act, which resulted in various ambiguities and problems. The main purposes of this Project are as follows: assisting competent authorities of all levels in enforcing the Act smoothly, providing legal consultation on dissolving the ambiguities encountered in practice of the Act, drawing up proposals to resolve the problems in implementing the Act, conducting review on the present laws and regulations, and providing suggestions on the revision thereof, assisting the competent authorities of all levels in motivating cost recovery of the Fund, and providing professional litigation services on legal disputes. In this Project the team has accomplished the main working results as follows:
1. Enlarging the scope of cost recovery, strengthening the preservation of claims and introducing Windfall Lien into the Act by the works as follows:
（1） revising Articles 12(13) of the Act by authorizing competent authorities to entrust professional entities in conducting oversight on the remediation works of the sites;
（2） Enlarging the scope of cost recovery provided in Article 43 of the Act, by adding the cost to be paid and the estimated cost to the recoverable costs in addition to the cost already paid by the Fund;
（3） Increasing the regulation that competent authorities may file application for provisional seizure or provisional measure without providing security bond, in addition to the present regulation concerning cost claim preservation that the authorities may request the relevant registration agency to forbid the title transfer registration of certain properties owned by responsible persons ;
（4） Prescribing new Articles 43-1 and 43-2 regarding to the “windfall lien” of competent authorities to recover the remediation costs of contaminated sites due to the increment of fair market value.
2. In coping with the loose regulations on the liability exemption of interested parties for land contamination, which causes the retarded situation in the improvement of contaminated lands, we have researched and drafted the amendment to “The Guidelines for Determining the Due Diligence of Interested Parties as Good Administrators of the Polluted Lands” and “The Fine Determination Criteria of SGRA” in order to increase the requirements on the management of lands and to revise the calculation method of the fine amount so that the amount may be elevated substantially.
3. Reviewing 7 drafts of administrative disposition ＆ related documents, and providing 9 legal opinions concerning the various legal questions presented by competent authorities of all levels.
4. Assisting the authority in reviewing the complete English translation of the Act and providing suggestions for revision.
5. Collecting and analyzing penalty provisions related to soil and groundwater pollution in the laws of Japan and the United States, as well as the management and preventive operations for industrial zone pollution; comparing these provisions with the Act, and proposing specific amendment suggestions.
6. Maintaining and updating the compilation of the Act and related regulations on mobile device, so as to enable the users to search the latest and most comprehensive relevant regulations of the Act at any time.
7. Holding 2 conferences on propagating and explaining “The Guidelines for Determining the Due Diligence of Interested Parties as Good Administrators of the Polluted Lands” and related regulations of the Act, so as to enable the general public and pertinent government agencies to understand and comply with relevant laws and regulations.
8. Holding “Training courses for the cost recovery of FUND and the precautionary procedures of its recovery” once per year during the execution period of the Project, the participants of which are environmental protection personnel at all levels of competent authorities.
9. Assisting competent authorities at all levels in handling a total of 15 litigation cases related to the Act.
