William-James Kettlewell

William-James advises clients across three closely connected areas:

• Energy: nuclear projects (including nuclear fuel supply), and projects involving renewable electricity, gases, hydrogen and fuels.
• Climate: the EU ETS, CBAM, CRCF, CORSIA and the wider EU and global climate frameworks, in particular with respect to how they shape industrial decarbonisation.
• Sustainability: corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence frameworks, green claims and greenwashing risk, especially in relation to energy transition and climate, including the interaction between the CSRD, CSDD, EU Taxonomy and sector-specific product requirements.

Across these areas William-James helps clients anticipate regulatory changes, understand what they mean in commercial terms, and make decisions that work legally, technically and operationally. Clients particularly involve him when the rules are still developing, several regulatory regimes overlap, or the answer needs to hold up in practice.

• Advising the Swedish State on the EU and Euratom law aspects of its new nuclear programme, including the structuring and design of a large multi-measure State aid package (two-way CfD, financing measures and a risk-sharing mechanism for spent fuel and nuclear waste), the drafting and negotiation of the commercial agreement underpinning that package, engagement with DG COMP, and the preparation of the State aid notification to the European Commission.
• Advising the State-owned developer of a large-scale nuclear new-build project in Europe on the EU and Euratom law aspects of the project, including the design and structuring of the State aid package and support during the European Commission's State aid review, the client's strategy on EU public procurement law, and nuclear fuel supply, safeguards and security-of-supply matters.
• Advising a global renewables project developer on the EU regulatory positioning of a cross-border subsea electricity interconnector and associated renewable-power project, including TEN-E / PCI-PMI positioning, State aid, EU public procurement, and the interaction with the Industrial Accelerator Act, ETS and CBAM downstream extension.
• Advising a global industrial group headquartered outside the EU on its energy transition investment strategy based on the EU ETS and CBAM, including the CBAM Simplification package, the treatment of RFNBO ammonia, indirect emissions and third-country carbon-price recognition, and on strategic positioning on Commission proposals.
• Advising energy-intensive industrial groups on the EU ETS itself, including the design and functioning of free allocation and product benchmarks, the interaction between the ETS and CBAM as EU ETS free allowances are phased out, and the strategic implications of the upcoming ETS revision.
• Advising multinational clients on the EU legal framework applicable to their global sustainability strategies, including the design and roll-out of worldwide CSRD double materiality assessments, the alignment of voluntary sustainability reporting with EU rules, and the mitigation of greenwashing risk under the Empowering Consumers Directive.

• Named to the "Forward 40" by the Forward Law Review, September 2025.
  
  This nomination was to a list of "the 40 rising stars aged 40 and under who are shaping the future of ESG and sustainability law worldwide."
  
  

• Ganshof van der Meersch Award, 2018.
  
  Prize awarded to the student who has shown the greatest qualities in the field of public law during their studies at the Law and Criminology Faculty of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.