Watson Farley & Williams LLP — Spain

Alfredo Cabellos

Alfredo is a Partner in the Asset Finance Group. He is a transport sector specialist, with extensive expertise in ship, aviation and rail finance. He advises both domestic and international financial institutions, lessors, shipowners and airlines on a wide variety of matters including tax-driven structured transactions (Spanish tax leases and operating leases) and export finance. He also advises several aircraft and helicopter lessors in a variety of structures involving Spanish lessees. Alfredo is experienced in advising on the financing of port terminals, ship arrest, regulatory matters, aircraft repossession and arbitrations relating to ship building contract disputes. · Asset Finance

Ana Lorenzo

Ana is a Partner in the Corporate and M&A group. She advises on corporate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments and divestments as well as corporate restructuring, insolvency proceedings and general company advice to both domestic and international companies. Ana regularly advises Spanish and foreign companies on several types of corporate and commercial contracts across an array of sectors including industrial, energy and infrastructure. · Corporate

Blanca López

BLANCA IS AN ASSOCIATE IN THE MADRID TAX GROUP. Blanca specialises in tax advice to financial entities, corporations, funds, private equity firms and insurers on corporate and structure finance transactions and support on international banking, investment and restructuring activities. She focusses on the renewable, real estate and maritime sectors. · Tax Law

Daniel Refoyo

Daniel is a Senior Associate in the Madrid Assets and Structured Finance Group. He advises a wide range of clients, including arrangers, lenders and other financial/lending institutions, shipowners, aircraft and rail lessors in asset-based finance structures, particularly within the maritime, aviation and rail sectors. A significant portion of the transactions include a cross-border/international element. His work covers all steps of the projects, including drafting, negotiating and implementing contracts and tax-based structures with a focus on the Spanish tax lease scheme and subsidy structures as well as syndicated financing (involving export credit agencies), ship and aircraft registration and corporate-related matters. Most recently he also advised clients from an insolvency standpoint. · Asset-Based Finance

Gonzalo Aranzabal

Gonzalo is a Partner in the Madrid Corporate group. With over 30 years of corporate and M&A legal practice, he advises on mergers and acquisitions and corporate and commercial law, counselling on national and international M&As and other commercial transactions within the industrial and service sectors in general and, in particular, the energy sector. He also has a strong insolvency and commercial dispute resolution practice. He has acted as a court appointed insolvency receiver (administrador concursal) in more than 25 insolvency proceedings, as well as legal counsel in more than 100 proceedings before the civil, commercial and arbitration courts. · Corporate and M&A

Isabel Rodríguez de Codes

Isabel Rodriguez de Codes is an Associate in Regulatory & Public Law Group. She specialises in regulated sectors, administrative, urban planning, public contracts and environmental fields. Isabel has experience in administrative and contentious-administrative processes, mainly focused on environmental fields, urban planning and public contracts. · Administrative Law

Javier Ester

Javier is a partner in the Corporate group. He has extensive experience in strategic corporate transactions in the energy sector, with a strong focus on renewable assets. He advises on corporate transactions, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions and corporate restructuring, and is involved in the drafting and negotiating of all kinds of corporate and commercial contracts. Javier is deeply specialised in the energy sector, mainly working on renewable projects, advising both Spanish and international players. Additionally, he also advises on infrastructure, industrial and services projects. · Corporate

Javier Gabiña

Javier is a Senior Associate in the Madrid Tax group. Javier specialised in tax advice to financial entities, corporations, funds, private equity firms and insurers on corporate and structure finance transactions and support on international banking, investment and restructuring activities. Additionally, Javier is experienced in local and cross-border M&A as well as asset management. He designs efficient tax structures for M&A and financing transactions, manages due diligence processes and tax financial modelling. He focuses on the renewable, real estate and maritime sectors also having experience in stock lending and swap transactions. · Tax

Jose María Anarte

José María leads the firm’s Infrastructure offering and is a Partner in the Finance Group. He specialises in project finance transactions, with a strong emphasis on energy, infrastructure and transport sectors. José María constantly advises both lenders and borrowers on a large variety of strategic transactions. His client portfolio includes sponsors, banks, investment funds and institutional investors. His track record covers greenfield assets’ financings and brownfield projects’ refinancing and restructuring. Additionally, José María has a solid background and interest in public procurement and administrative law (public concession agreements, public tendering) and energy efficiency matters. · Project Finance

José María Pery

José María is Counsel in the Madrid Asset Finance group. He specalises in the transport sector, with focus on maritime law. He has extensive experience advising national and international clients on purchase and sale agreements, asset financing and construction transactions in the maritime, transport and logistics sectors. Additionally, he supervises and leads negotiations on services agreements relating to engineering projects in both Spain and globally, as well as advising on administrative procurement agreements, overseas subsidiaries set-ups and insurance policy and claims. · Asset Finance

Juan Vicente Barquilla

Juan Vicente is a Partner in the Finance Group. He specialises in structured finance transactions, including debt issuance transactions, with particular emphasis on energy and infrastructure projects. Additionally, he advises financial entities and private developers and companies on complex cross-border financings, dedicated to acquisition of assets with coverage by major international export credit agencies, having participated in some of the most significant transactions in the market in recent years. Juan Vicente is regularly involved in greenfield renewable energy projects (such as photovoltaic, wind, biomass, etc.) in drafting turnkey contracts (including TSAs, BoPs and BOS) and operation and maintenance agreements, which provides him with a deeper knowledge of the underlying technology in the framework of a financing. · Structured Finance

Lidia Fernández Jiménez

Lidia is Counsel in the Regulatory Group. Lidia focusses on the energy sector, advising domestic and international clients on all regulatory requirements for their projects whether using existing or new technology such as BESS. Her in sector expertise includes advising on corporate and finance transactions as well as litigation matters. She also has growing expertise in the new emerging regulatory trends regarding data centres. · Energy Regulatory

Luis González García

Luis is a Partner in the Regulatory Group. He specialises in regulated sectors and administrative and environmental laws, with experience in energy and environmental fields such as waste, contaminated soil, water, industrial emissions, impact assessment and environmental liability. Luis mainly focuses on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Joining from a Spanish law firm, where for more than 20 years he advised both local and international financial entities and companies in M&A and financing transactions, as well as on public procurements and contentious administrative processes. He is involved in project development, from early stages to ready-to-build and COD. · Administrative Law

Luis Soto

Luis is a partner in the Tax Group. He advises in transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, asset finance, project finance, capital markets and tax dispute resolution. He has a deep knowledge in international taxation. Luis’s experience includes a wide range of sectors such as energy and infrastructure, transport (maritime and aviation) and real estate. · Mergers and Acquisitions

María Pilar García Guijarro

María Pilar is Energy Sector Head - Europe & Americas and Head of the Madrid office. She is a partner in the Corporate and M&A group with more than 20 years’ experience in the energy and infrastructure sectors in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with a special focus on the wind and solar sectors. María Pilar advises investment funds, industrial companies and financial institutions on the full spectrum of corporate transactions. She specialises in corporate and commercial advice including structuring, development, acquisition of projects, portfolios and platforms, M&A and private equity deals, project contracts (such as PPA, EPC and O&M) and joint ventures. She also has extensive experience advising on structured financings, as well as restructurings and refinancings. · Corporate

Pablo San Gil

Pablo is a Partner in the Real Estate group. He has extensive experience on a range of real estate projects including asset acquisitions, development and refurbishment projects, financings for acquisitions, development and refurbishment (including structures with combined debt – senior, mezzanine and subordinated). In the scope of these projects, he acted advising lenders, financial entities, REITs, investment funds providing equity and debt, as well as promoters and developers. · Real Estate

Paula Pérez

Paula is a senior Associate in the Regulatory & Public Law Group. She specialises in regulated sectors, administrative, urban planning and environmental fields, such as waste, water, impact assessment or environmental liability, among others, with a special focus on renewable energy. Paula has experience providing advice in M&A and financings transactions of all kinds of projects. She also has experience in public procurements and contentious-administrative processes, mainly focussed on renewable energy, environmental fields and urban planning. · Administrative Law

Rodrigo Berasategui

Rodrigo is a Partner in the Finance Group. He has extensive experience advising on financing energy and infrastructure projects. With more than 20 years of practice expertise, Rodrigo has a broad knowledge advising on transactions involving renewable energy including wind, electric, solar (thermosolar and photovoltaic) and biomass, as well as all types of infrastructure (highways, rails, tramways, ports and hospitals, etc.). He advises a large number of public and private developers, sponsors, financial institutions, multilateral institutions, insurers and specialised funds on the full range of financing schemes, worldwide, including in Latin America: project finance, mezzanine loans, corporate and acquisition finance, export and trade finance transactions. He also acts on debt capital market transactions such as EMTN programmes and green and project bonds. · Banking and Finance

Victor Mercedes

Victor is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution Group. Victor has more than 20 years of legal experience in dispute resolution, acting for domestic and international clients, corporations, listed or non-listed, funds and individuals in litigation and arbitration proceedings. He is a former State Attorney in charge of the legal defence and representation of the Spanish Government, before courts, having served for six years, acting in over 2,000 disputes. He was also a member of the Spanish Administrative Observatory for Tax Crime and Punishable Insolvencies appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, in charge of legal reforms in such matters. In private practice since 2006, he has been a leading lawyer in civil, commercial and corporate litigation, insolvency and pre-insolvency advice and litigation, domestic and international arbitration, white-collar crime litigation, corporate defence and related compliance work. Victor advises and acts as counsel for Spanish and international clients in domestic and international commercial arbitration disputes, before the most relevant international and Spanish arbitration courts or in ad-hoc arbitrations in a broad variety of sectors. He also has significant experience in investment treaty disputes especially involving countries and governments in Central and South America. He assists Spanish and international clients, both contractual and tort, on directors’ liability and conflicts within companies and in any complex litigation before civil and commercial courts in Spain in all their instances. Victor advises criminal law for corporate crime and compliance and defends companies and directors in cross-border or highly complex criminal investigations and judicial proceedings before Spanish criminal courts including the National Court and the Supreme Court. He advises and represents Spanish and international clients in insolvency proceedings, distress situations, liability for insolvency, as well as transactions in the context of insolvencies. He accumulates extensive experience advising on domestic or cross-border sales of business units within insolvency proceedings. · Dispute Resolution