Sectors

Energy, Climate Change and Natural Resources

Our expertise:

We bring together lawyers specialising in energy, environmental, planning, procurement, construction and finance law, to provide seamless advice on all aspects of development, financing, construction, operation and regulation of energy projects and businesses. We have a particular complementary strength in regulatory and advisory work and can guide clients through these complex and multi-faceted frameworks.

The McCann FitzGerald legal team does more, however, than simply enabling clients to anticipate and adapt to market forces. We facilitate innovation. We enable clients to respond to trends at European, national and international levels, seizing opportunities as they emerge. It is this opportunity-orientated approach which makes us stand out. It is an approach, which is borne of an established culture of internal team-work and dialogue, with diverse voices coming together to identify practical, pioneering complete solutions to problems. This is one of the main areas in which McCann FitzGerald distinguishes itself from competitors. It is this differentiator (bolstered by the reputation of our individual specialists) which leads to our consistent engagement with the most interesting, pioneering, complex, and cutting-edge legal work.

Key areas:

We regularly provide advice on:

Regulation

• Energy regulation
• Regulatory reform and market design issues
• Price control

Energy projects

• Generation projects
• Networks projects
• Storage projects

Energy Contracts

• Energy trading - power purchase and trading contracts and associated codes and market settlement arrangements
• Energy supply - supply contracts and consumer issues

Financing

• Acquisition and leveraged financing
• Leasing and asset finance
• Debt capital markets

Petroleum and Minerals

• Licences
• Acquisitions and disposals of interests
• Upstream projects

Key highlights include advising:   

• BlackRock Renewables in relation to its acquisition, financing and development of a number of wind farm projects and on all related regulatory matters
• Bord na Móna on a number of energy projects including its (partial) merger with Coillte, the first such venture being the Sliabh Bawn wind farm and its solar joint venture with ESB
• Coillte on the development of its wind farm business, and associated regulatory matters
• Ervia on the sale of its energy business (ie its supply and generation business in Ireland, and its distribution and supply business in Northern Ireland) and, in particular, the regulatory matters arising on the reorganisation and sale of the generation assets and the trading business and the approvals/consents process involved
• Gaelectric on the sale of a portfolio of 230MW of wind energy assets to China General Nuclear Group
• Greencoat Capital, an international renewables fund, on a multi-faceted transaction involving the acquisition of two operational ROI wind farms
• I Squared Capital, a global infrastructure investment manager, on its acquisition of Irish power company Viridian from Arcapita, in a deal reported as valued at €1 billion (£788m US$1.1bn)
• Marubeni Corporation on its equity investment in Mainstream and ongoing advice in relation to the management of that investment
• PSE Kinsale Energy, as standing counsel, advising on its upstream activities, which include its various exploration projects and its decommissioning activities
• Raheenleagh Power Limited, a Coillte Teoranta\ESB joint venture, in respect of the development, operation and project financing of a wind farm in Raheenleagh, Co Wicklow    
• Single Electricity Market Operator (SEMO) on the rule changes required for intra-day trading in the single electricity market