Mr. Urgo is an associate in the Commercial Litigation Department. Mr. Urgo's practice includes litigation and counseling on broad areas such as insurance law, environmental law, and professional liability for architects and engineers.
Mr. Urgo received his B.S. from Drexel University and his J.D. from Widener University School of Law. While in law school, he clerked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, and at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc. He is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York and before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Urgo has served as in-house counsel for two multi-national specialty lines insurers that provided liability insurance policies for environmental, contractor and design professional risks on an admitted and excess and surplus lines basis. He was also formerly in private practice in Philadelphia where he represented insurers in connection with environmental and asbestos losses. A summary of Mr. Urgo’s experience includes:
Insurance
- Coverage - Mr. Urgo has authored thousands of coverage opinions on complex coverage issues involving all lines of primary and excess liability coverage including general liability, auto liability, and environmental liability; construction defect claims, and toxic exposure claims. He also has broad experience in handling coverage for professional liability claims for architects and engineers. His coverage background includes analysis and drafting of various types of reinsurance contracts. He regularly litigates coverage issues involving environmental claims, construction defects and bad faith claims. He co-authored an amicus brief in AllAmerica Financial Corporation v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, 449 Mass. 621 ( 2007), for the Supreme Judicial Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, involving an issue of national first impression regarding the duties of follow-form excess insurers.
- Underwriting Support – Mr. Urgo assists Underwriters in risk management in understanding complex risks associated with emerging technologies, such as Business Information Modeling (BIMS) and hydraulic fracturing. Risk management analysis also focuses on interpreting contractual indemnity provisions and other contractual risk shifting mechanisms.
- Loss Valuations - In addition to liability coverage, Mr. Urgo also has significant experience in first-party property coverage issues, e.g., business interruption and extra expense covers, arising from catastrophic losses, i.e., building collapse, fires, hurricanes and the World Trade Center Terrorist Attracts. These losses involved extensive construction related issues arising from assessing scope of damages and repairs using updated means and methods/code compliant design and construction.
- Policy Drafting - Mr. Urgo’s policy drafting experience includes manuscript EIL, CGL, AL, PL and contractor policies and endorsements covering all types of risks, including those of owners and operators of storage tanks, motor carriers, contractors, design professionals, developers, and facility owner/operators.
Environmental
- Compliance/Permitting – Mr. Urgo has successfully represented one of the world’s largest wind turbine generating companies in connection with reducing a Clean Air Act penalty of $1.3 million by more than half. He regularly negotiates environmental fines, penalties and notices of violation with regulators involving alleged violation of federal and state laws. He assists manufactures, landowners, developers, casino gaming interests and motor carriers in negotiating or obtaining all types of environmental permits, including wetland jurisdictional determinations, NPDES permits and NJDEP permits to transport solid waste through New Jersey’s A-901 program.
- Transactional – Mr. Urgo represents buyers, sellers, developers and lending institutions in the transfer and redevelopment of contaminated sites, such as Brownfield sites. Notable projects included representing the purchaser of a multi-million dollar pharmaceutical manufacturing facility undergoing RCRA Corrective Action. He regularly drafts and negotiates risk transfer mechanisms, such as indemnity agreements or manuscript environmental insurance liability and “cost-cap” policies to facilitate real estate transfers and redevelopment projects. He has negotiated and drafted these types of instruments in connection with an Israeli petroleum company’s multi-million dollar acquisition of a U.S. downstream distribution network, and a major British-based pharmaceutical company’s divestiture of over 100 sites constituting its former worldwide manufacturing facilities.
- Litigation – Mr. Urgo represents property owners and developers in cost recovery litigation. He has successfully recover millions of dollars of cleanup costs or diminution/stigma damages from responsible parties, including major petroleum companies. He also represents property owners/manufactures in Superfund litigation against claims by federal and state governments for response costs. In addition, Mr. Urgo has represented a U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee and the State of New Jersey in fraud and RICO claims arising from the recent financial crises.
Construction
- Mr. Urgo has handled hundreds of construction defect claims involving residential and commercial construction projects such as condominiums, developments, airports, power generating stations, high-rise buildings, transportation projects and other infrastructure projects. He has handled losses arising from defective work and/or building materials, geotechnical issues, water intrusion, and structural failure. Notable losses included claims arising from the $3 billion Alliance Pipeline System, a 2,300-mile natural gas pipeline system stretching from British Columbia to Illinois.
- His professional liability experience includes claims made against architects and engineers and arising from domestic and international projects such as transportation systems, treatment works, construction projects and other industrial facilities.
- He regularly represents owners, developers, contractors and other entities in assessing, drafting and negotiating construction contracts, with emphasis on defense and indemnification provisions and insurance requirements.
