Editorial: Project Finance in Florida
01 November 2007
Eight individuals from six firms make up our project finance chapter. These eight lawyers have a proven track record in representing sponsors and lenders in project financing and refinancing transactions, many with regard to matters in South America.
Hogan & Hartson LLP has an international reputation for project finance work in the energy sector and is the only firm to have more than one practitioner in this chapter (they have three lawyers listed). Thomas Woolsey has a reputation as “one of the finest project finance lawyers around”. His area of expertise is in the energy sector, with a particular focus on the financing of wind energy facilities in the US and Latin America. In this area Woolsey has represented both sponsor and issuer in senior secured and mezzanine capital markets financings of nine wind-powered electric generation facilities in the US. Jorge Diaz-Silveira is another “great name” in the area, known for representing independent power producers; he has represented a large independent power producer in a master purchase agreement for 315 wind turbines. Diaz-Silveira has worked on projects in the US, Asia, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Miguel Zaldivar is an “expert in the Latin American market” and teaches a course on project development and finance in Latin America at the University of Miami School of Law. A great number of Zaldivar’s clients are Latin American state-owned companies in the petrochemical, oil, gas and energy sectors, and he has represented a Venezuelan state-owned petrochemical company in the formation of joint ventures with US, European and Asian investors to develop multiple petrochemical facilities.
Timothy McCarthy is the co-chair of the Latin American practice at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP and is based in Miami. He is “extremely knowledgeable about doing business in Latin America – especially Brazil” and this aspect of his practice was praised repeatedly. Barry Weiss from Greenberg Traurig LLP is active in the financing of energy, infrastructure and other projects on an international scale, with matters in Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Latin America, Europe and the US. Carlos Loumiet from Hunton & Williams is a high-profile practitioner described as a “major player” and a “very good lawyer”. He has worked on power plant projects in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, and Nicaragua, as well as telecom projects in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru.
Carlos Viana from White & Case LLP also has a strong cross-border element to his practice. Viana has been involved in financings across a range of sectors, including infrastructure, mining, oil and gas, power and telecommunications. Scott Monroe Coffey is based in the West Palm Beach office of Squire Sanders & Dempsey LLP. Coffey represents his clients in transactions involving the development and financing of energy projects in the US. These include natural gas-fired facilities as well as renewable energy facilities such as wind-powered, geothermal, solar and wood-burning generating facilities.