Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has promoted eleven lawyers to the firm’s partnership for 2023, bringing the total number of partners to 195. They are:
Laura Cadenas – Assets & Structured Finance, Madrid
Laura has over 16 years’ experience advising on transport-related financing transactions, especially in the aviation and maritime sectors. She has extensive expertise in aircraft financing for helicopters, commercial aircraft and business jets, as well as tax lease transactions for ships, shipbuilding contracts and ECA-backed financings and other asset finance transactions for rail and rolling stock. Laura also has a broad knowledge of M&A and corporate and commercial law.
Shusuke Fukunaga – Assets & Structured Finance, Tokyo
Shusuke has extensive experience in a wide range of both domestic and cross-border banking and finance transactions, focussing on aviation and maritime asset finance. He regularly advises banks, trading houses, corporate investors, airlines, leasing companies, ECAs and other financial institutions. He is a licensed Japanese lawyer (bengoshi) and is also admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales.
Philip Jackmauh – Assets & Structured Finance, New York
Philip has over 30 years’ experience in commercial aircraft leasing and finance and has worked with aircraft lessors, commercial airlines and financiers throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. His practice focusses on structuring and negotiating a broad range of cross-border, multi-jurisdictional aircraft acquisition, lease and financing transactions, as well as associated dispute resolution.
Ricky Kim – Assets & Structured Finance, Seoul
With over a decade of experience on all aspects of ship financing, Ricky primarily advises banks, ECAs, private equity investors, funds and shipping companies including owners, managers and charterers. He specialises in banking and finance matters including secured lending, syndicated and bilateral lending, corporate finance and ECA-backed finance, as well as restructuring, works-outs, rehabilitation and loan portfolio transfers. He is qualified in both Singapore and England & Wales.
Giannalberto Mazzei – Public Law, Regulatory & Competition, Rome
Giannalberto advises Italian and international companies on administrative law matters, with a particular focus on regulation relating to energy projects (renewables and gas, including LNG and hydrogen) and the transport sector (primarily aviation). He also has significant experience advising on public contracts and concessions for public services and infrastructure, including project finance schemes. Giannalberto represents his clients on both the above matters and on disputes relating to administrative procedures before the Italian high courts such as the Council of State and Superior Court for Public Waters.
Marinos Papadopoulos – Assets & Structured Finance, London
Marinos specialises in non-contentious shipping and shipping finance, acting mainly on behalf of private equity funds and ship-owning groups. His expertise includes working on shipbuilding contracts, supervision agreements, charterparties, ship management agreements, sale and purchase transactions as well as loan documentation, finance sale and leasebacks, IPOs and portfolio transfers.
John Rosmini – Real Estate, London
John is an experienced real estate lawyer advising on a range of real estate matters, with particular expertise in the energy market having worked in the energy sector for over 12 years. He advises clients at all stages of a project lifecycle, acting for clients at any early stage of the development of a project, through to advising investors acquiring projects and funders providing finance.
Luca Sfrecola – Corporate, Rome
With extensive expertise and experience in international public and private law, Luca has structured, negotiated and successfully closed transactions of great economic and social import in Italy and overseas – primarily in the energy, manufacturing and transport sectors – for sophisticated private, institutional and governmental clients. He is qualified in Italy, New York and England & Wales.
Emily Widdrington – Assets & Structured Finance, London
Emily specialises in shipping finance with over 12 years’ experience advising and acting for banks and ship owners on loan and security documentation. Her experience ranges from advising on high-value ECA-backed financing to loan agreements involving sustainability-linked margin adjustments.
Richard Williams – Assets & Structured Finance, Singapore
Richard specialises in asset and structured finance with a particular focus on the aviation industry. He has a broad range of experience with a strategic focus on aviation finance and the leasing sector where he advises banks, investors, leasing companies and airlines on the full range of asset finance products.
Britta Wißmann – Projects, Dusseldorf
With more than 15 years’ work experience, Britta has a deep understanding of the energy sector. Her clients include energy companies, utilities, power plant operators and industrial companies. She has extensive expertise in the fields of energy law including energy delivery and trading contracts, PPAs and recently also hydrogen projects. Britta advises utilities in their transition in the energy sector with a focus on new business models, joint ventures and co-operations.
Senior Partner George Paleokrassas commented: “I’m delighted to welcome eleven such talented lawyers to our partnership. Their passion and commitment greatly enhance both our partnership and the firm generally and ensures WFW will continue to expand and succeed as we go forward”.
Managing Partner Lindsey Keeble added: “Our new partners span our core sectors of energy, infrastructure and transport across multiple services as well as being based throughout our international network in Europe, Asia and the Americas, including in our newly opened Seoul and Tokyo offices. I am delighted to welcome them to the WFW partnership”.
