Fasken Martineau, a leading international business law and litigation firm, was lead project finance counsel to Nalcor Energy for the financing of the $5 billion Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Generating Facility and the Labrador-Island Transmission Link projects.
Nalcor Energy, a Newfoundland and Labrador Crown corporation, is developing the Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Generating Facility and the Labrador-Island Transmission Link projects. The Federal Government of Canada has provided a loan guarantee (Sovereign Guarantee) for the financing of the projects.
“The critical aspect of the Lower Churchill hydro and transmission project financing was to structure it in a manner that the Sovereign Guarantor’s AAA credit rating would be transferred to the project special purpose vehicles such that the pricing for the debt would resemble as much as possible that of the AAA Sovereign,” said Xeno Martis the lead Fasken Martineau lawyer on this file. “Fasken Martineau conceived and proposed a modified “wrap structure” which sheltered the lenders from any project risk and provided them with direct recourse to the Sovereign,” added Mr. Martis.
Fasken Martineau’s team was led by Xeno Martis (Project Finance, Montréal) and included Angela Onesi (Project Finance, Montréal), Félix Gutierrez (Banking, Montréal), Jean Michel Lapierre (Securities, Montréal), Helmut Johannsen (Construction and Commercial, Vancouver), David Manny (Projects, London), David Little (Commercial and Projects, Vancouver), Daniel Picotte (Commercial and Projects, Montréal), Alain Ranger (Tax, Montréal), Howard M. Carr (Tax, Toronto), André Turmel (Regulatory, Montréal), Ron Ezekiel (Regulatory, Vancouver), Peter Feldberg (Regulatory, Calgary), and Ian Cassie (Real Estate, Vancouver).
