Health and safety in the oil and gas sector: The regulators

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
Produced in partnership with Lynne Gray of Burness Paull
Practice notes

Health and safety in the oil and gas sector: The regulators

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis

Produced in partnership with Lynne Gray of Burness Paull

Practice notes
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Brexit ImpACT

11 pm (GMT) on 31 December 2020 marked the end of the Brexit transition/implementation period entered into following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. At this point in time (referred to in UK law as ‘IP completion day’), key transitional arrangements came to an end and significant changes began to take effect across the UK’s legal regime. Any changes relevant to this content will be set out below.

Upon IP completion day, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EU(W)A 2018) created a new category of domestic UK law—retained EU Law (REUL)—made up of EU-derived rights and legislation that were preserved in the UK following Brexit. On 29 June 2023, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (REUL(RR)A 2023) gained Royal Assent. REUL(RR)A 2023 reforms the treatment of REUL by: 

  1. •

    revoking substantial amounts of REUL from 31 December 2023

  2. •

    re-labelling REUL as ‘assimilated law’ from 1 January 2024

  3. •

    creating new powers in relation to assimilated law

The re-categorisation of REUL (and associated

Lynne Gray
Lynne Gray chambers

Burness Paull

Lynne is a Director in Burness Paull’s specialist health, safety and corporate crime team. Based in Aberdeen a significant part of her practice is offshore oil and gas.


She undertakes defence of criminal prosecutions, inquiries and compliance advisory work liaising with management at board level. Lynne is experienced in supporting clients through all aspects of an incident, from initial response (often emergency response/crisis management including raids) through lengthy, complex and technical investigations to final resolution and implementation of lessons learned. She has significant experience instructing and managing internal investigations under legal privilege including liaising with and instructing legal counsel in other jurisdictions. Her background is diverse (corporate finance, civil litigation and insurance reparation) and includes a career break to have a family where she lived in New York for five years.


Work Highlights include:

  • Successful in having the Crown drop a case against a major oil and gas company investigated for health and safety failings in relation to a third party contractor injured working on a crane offshore
  • Advising a major oil company in relation to an appeal of an improvement notice issued by HSE
  • Advising in relation to an appeal of improvement notices served on an installation operator in relation to hydrocarbon releases offshore

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
Sector definition
What does Sector mean?

stock markets are divided into sectors, which comprise of companies from the same industries eg telecommunications sector, oil sector, media sector etc.

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