Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has promoted seven lawyers to the firm’s partnership for 2024. They are:
Juan Vicente Barquilla – Project & Structured Finance, Energy and Infrastructure, Madrid
Juan Vicente specialises in structured finance, including project finance and debt issuance transactions, primarily in the energy and infrastructure sectors. He advises both financial entities and private developers on financing schemes, including trade finance and transactions involving international ECAs as well as on project document negotiations.
Luis González – Regulatory, Public Law & Competition, Energy and Infrastructure, Madrid
Luis specialises in regulated sectors and administrative and environment law as well as energy matters, particularly renewable energy and energy efficiency. He has over 20 years’ experience advising domestic and international financial institutions on M&A, financing transactions and project development as well as public procurement and contentious administrative processes.
John (Junghyun) Kil – Corporate, Seoul
John’s practice is focussed on international capital markets, where he works on a variety of debt and equity offerings by Asian issuers, including common stock and investment-grade bond offerings and other cross-border corporate transactions. His practice extends to advising clients on cross-border finance matters including asset finance transactions in the maritime sector as well as ECA-backed and real estate finance across multiple jurisdictions.
Valerie Lee – Assets & Structured Finance, Maritime, Hong Kong
Valerie regularly advises banks and financial institutions on asset, offshore oil and gas and project finance as well as general banking and finance transactions. She acts for syndicates in debt restructuring, work-out and enforcement matters and has frequently acted for various shipowners, container and ship leasing companies. She also has expertise advising on big ticket Asian ECA-backed financings.
Guillaume Pouyet – Corporate, Paris
Guillaume specialises in M&A, private equity and securities regulation. He advises listed and unlisted companies, French and international investment funds and family holding companies on mergers and acquisitions, investments and divestments, restructuring operations and managerial incentive plans, as well as stock market legal follow-up. Guillaume focusses primarily on the transport, energy, real estate sectors as well as finance, luxury and audiovisual matters.
Sarah Williamson – Corporate, London
Sarah specialises in a broad range of corporate work with particular experience in the energy and natural resources sectors. She advises on deals including mergers & acquisitions, joint venture arrangements, corporate finance and commercial transactions.
Dora Ying – Assets & Structured Finance, Maritime, Hong Kong
Specialising in ship financing, Dora represents banks, leasing companies and other financial institutions on domestic and international syndicated and bilateral loan and leasing transactions. She also has experience advising financial institutions on loan restructurings, defaults and enforcement and loan portfolio transfers.
Senior Partner George Paleokrassas commented: “I’m delighted to welcome seven such talented lawyers to our partnership. Their expertise focussed on our core sectors in line with our firm strategy greatly enhances both our partnership, the offering to our clients and the firm generally, ensuring WFW continues to expand and succeed through 2024”.
Managing Partner Lindsey Keeble added: “Our new partners reflect WFW’s global reach, in particular our growing reputation in Asia following the opening of our Seoul and Tokyo offices last year. I am delighted to welcome them to the WFW partnership”.
