Global Infrastructure

Our Global Infrastructure practice has the in-depth industry knowledge to advise our clients in a constantly changing sector. The group includes nearly 100 lawyers, located in eight U.S. cities, as well as in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Rome and Tokyo. We devote 100 percent of our time to serving the comprehensive legal needs of our clients in the infrastructure sector, providing creative and practical legal advice under English, European Union, French, German, Hong Kong, Italian, Japanese, Russian and U.S. law.

Orrick has been recognized among the leading law firms by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, as well as The Legal 500. A number of our lawyers have advised on projects lauded as "Deals of the Year" in various industry publications such as Project Finance, International Financial Law Review, Infrastructure Journal, Asset Finance International and Trade Finance.

What We Do

As governmental entities seek alternative means of funding the expansion and renovation of essential infrastructure, they turn to project finance and innovative hybrid public and private debt financing. Lawyers in Orrick's project finance practice have played a key role in infrastructure finance worldwide. We represent participants in numerous infrastructure sectors including:

• transportation
• airports and seaports
• energy
• healthcare
• housing
• leisure facilities
• education
• technology

In the United States, we have served as leading legal counsel in the recent rise in the privatization of infrastructure while also remaining at the forefront of public private partnership (PPP) developments in Europe and Asia.

Who We Represent

Our clients, whether developers, lenders, investors, financiers or private and public sector issuers, represent all sectors of infrastructure development. Orrick's involvement in U.S. infrastructure finance is extensive, and our work has included the financing of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco International Airport, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and JFK and Newark airports. We have worked on behalf of export credit agencies and multilateral development banks as well as commercial banks to finance projects across Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa. Our lawyers have advised in a number groundbreaking infrastructure transactions in China, including the first application of a build-operate-transfer (BOT) structure for a water plant and one of the largest project financings ever.

Practice Specialties

Our interdisciplinary approach brings together market-leading skills in infrastructure finance, capital markets, public finance, structured finance, and tax to address successfully the diverse needs of project finance participants. Our experience includes designing alternative financial and legal structures, drafting financing models and project documents, and managing complicated cross-border transactions. Key to the success of our infrastructure practice is the strength of our Public Finance Group, as many infrastructure projects are funded using a combination of public and private debt.

Representative Transactions

• African Development Bank, Standard Bank Plc and a syndicate of local Nigerian lenders, including United Bank for Africa Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc and Zenith Bank Plc, as the senior lenders, in connection with the US$450 million Lekki Toll Road project. This scheme is the first project-financed real toll road project in sub-Saharan Africa and involved the construction, upgrading, rehabilitation and tolling of the existing 49-km stretch of the Lekki-to-Epe expressway and the 20-km coastal road, respectively, in Lagos, Nigeria.
• COSCO Pacific Limited in connection with the €4.3 billion (US$6.6 billion) concession agreement with Piraeus Port Authority S.A. (PPA) to develop and operate Piers 2 and 3 at the port of Piraeus in Greece. The concession agreement was signed by the Greek Prime Minister and was witnessed by President Hu Jintao of China in Athens.
• German Aerospace Center in connection with an interdisciplinary feasibility study on an innovative pilot scheme for a PPP project for the German Aerospace Center's headquarters near Cologne. The project encompasses extensive facility management services, energy supply, roads, several research facilities and the construction of administration buildings.
• Ruhr University Bochum in connection with the interdisciplinary feasibility study for the preparation of a PPP Pilot Project of the Task Force of the Ministry of Finance of North Rhine-Westphalia. The seminar center of the "Ruhr-Universität Bochum" is the first PPP project of a university in North Rhine-Westphalia.
• SIOR, a partnership among four local health authorities in Italy, in the €400 million project financing of the construction and management of four hospitals in Tuscany.
• Transurban Group and Fluor Corp., as sponsors, in connection with the development, financing and the construction of the US$1.9 billion Capital Beltway High Occupancy Toll Lane project in Virginia, outside of Washington, DC.

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