Linklaters

Nationalisations, rescue plans for distressed companies and government plans to boost the economy all strengthen this shift. Nevertheless, the scarcity of public funds still drives liberalisation, privatisation, project finance and public private partnership trends, supplementing traditional regulatory and procurement activities. 

Public & administrative law is a crucial offering at Linklaters in Europe. Linklaters’ pan-European expertise is long-standing and comprehensive in all fields of regulatory, administrative and environmental law aspects, including State aid, public procurement as well as urban planning. In addition, we advise on issues related to foreign investments, particularly to ensure the absence of discrimination or barriers to entry. Dedicated teams of specialists have developed  second-to-none expertise in major innovative and complex transactions and have thus become central to the provision of advice  in their respective jurisdictions. Our advice is integrated with that of our other practices,  particularly finance and corporate, to act on strategic international and national deals where public & administrative law is a key element.

Linklaters’ public & administrative law teams advise corporates, commercial banks, public funded entities, local authorities and national governments. Our specialists are involved in M&A deals, project finance, real estate transactions and IPOs. They advise in PFI/PPP and procurement tendering processes and have a thorough experience in public sector financing. They also assist their clients in contentious administrative proceedings. In addition, they advise funded entities and governments on the feasibility and structuring of new regulations. Our relationships with public bodies enable clients to benefit from direct access to public decision-makers.

Clients seek the firm’s expertise in the defence, infrastructure, energy (including renewable energy projects and emissions trading issues), utilities and telecommunications industries.

Recent public & administrative law transactions include advising

• the French PPP unit (MAPPP) for the implementation of the Government's €10 billion debt guarantee programme for PPP projects in the field of the Government’s stimulus plan for the economy (current)
• a consortium led by Bilfinger Berger on the A1 motorway extension project in the state of Lower Saxony – the largest PPP project in Germany
• Suez in relation with privatisation aspects and energy regulations within the merger with Gaz de France, the largest statutory merger and privatisation ever in France (€96 billion current combined market capitalisation, 2005-2008)
• Cobre Las Cruces on the structuring of water rights (both collection and discharge of water) for the biggest mining project in Spain
• a consortium on the acquisition of the Saur Group, third major French water supplier (€2.25 billion, 2007)
• the underwriters in the privatisation and €1.4 billion IPO of Aéroports de Paris for which Linklaters was granted a Jane’s Transport Finance Award (2006)
• the consortium led by Espírito Santo Saúde on the preparation and drafting of the bid for the €800 million PPP of the Braga hospital in Portugal as part of the international public tender
• Altaréa on the privatisation of Paris’ wholesale market for fresh products at Rungis, the largest in the world, known as the “Belly of Paris” (2008)
• ACS/Dragados’ subsidiary as sponsor in the €310 million lease financing of a unit for processing waste to be built in Fos-sur-Mer, considered as the largest environmental PPP project in France (2007)
• the Gavi Fund in relation with its project of securitisation of donor pledges from various governments, within the International Finance Facility for Immunisation for which Linklaters won the “Legal Business” magazine’s award for Banking and Finance Team of the Year (2006)
• on the project involving the design, financing and creation of a clinical and biomedical research institute on the site of the Centre Hospitalier National d'Ophtalmologie des Quinze-Vingts (Central Eye Hospital) in Paris, reported in the French press as the first PPP project since the Government launched its recent PPP policy (2005)