Expertise

Our team has experience in dealing with a wide range of banking and finance matters:

Banking

We have an extensive track record acting as counsel to lenders or borrowers in connection with a wide range of finance transactions:

Our legal services cover structuring the transaction; due diligence on the borrower’s status, property and activity; ensuring the conformity of lending documentation with Romanian law and practice; preparation and negotiation of facility agreements, related security and other agreements; assistance in respect of related filings and formalities; issuance of legal opinions;
We advise financial institutions on multi-jurisdictional transactions involving financing of groups' restructuring, corporate financing or re-financing of existing debts;
We assist in bilateral and syndicated lending, domestic or cross-border, involving sometimes senior and mezzanine financing and liens;
Our experience also includes financing through factoring; assistance in relation to assignment of trade or loan receivables portfolios to foreign SPVs; purchase of non-performing debts’ portfolios (including servicing and debt collection); financing based on leasing or mortgage loans receivables.

Project finance

We assist financial institutions, as well as investors, sponsors, project vehicle companies in various types of project finance:

Our experience ranges from real estate to energy (including renewable energy projects, oil and gas), utilities, infrastructure and mining. We have also developed our capabilities in respect of projects involving the greenhouse gas emission certificates trading scheme. Our prior and continuous involvement in these sectors gives us a thorough understanding of the industry specific aspects, of the approaches and views of the main players;
We effectively coordinate our assistance across practice groups, based on the type of project in question (energy, mining, utilities, infrastructure, etc.) and we are one of the few firms in Romania which can provide clients with top-tier advice across the board, regardless of the area of law and industry involved;
Our legal assistance covers due diligence, analysis and assessment of the project documents and project permits and licenses, ensuring the conformity of loan documentation with Romanian law and practice, preparation and negotiation of loan agreements governed by Romanian law related security other agreements, assistance with various filings and formalities, issuance of legal opinions on the finance documents and project documents.

Acquisition finance

We have broad experience in assets or shares acquisition finance and in addressing the issues typically raised by such financing.

We assisted financial institutions and borrowers in relation to financing acquisitions of businesses primarily developed in Romania, as well as acquisitions of groups of companies having subsidiaries in Romania.

Restructuring and insolvency

We provide assistance to financial institutions for restructuring of financing facilities, assessment of various default situations and feasibility of next steps;
We have created an integrated team of finance and litigation lawyers (with expertise in banking litigation and insolvency) working together to provide advice to financial institutions looking for alternatives for restructuring financial transactions or determining the possibilities of recovering debt, including in case of insolvency of the borrower or guarantors or in case of concurrent claims of creditors;
Our integrated team can assess and provide a strategy of restructuring/recovery, as all aspects of the relationship between the financial institution and the borrower/guarantors/other key parties (other major creditors, key suppliers, key clients/partners of the borrower, etc.) are closely monitored from the very beginning and all documents are prepared accordingly. Our tax consultants promptly provide their input as needed.

Financial and regulatory advice

Our expertise covers the full range of legal services to credit institutions, as well as to financial institutions, in respect of structuring their presence/direct provision of services in Romania and all related formalities;
Legal services we usually provide to clients cover preparation of standard agreements for the products and services offered, legal advice in connection with new products to be launched, legal feasibility studies, advice in respect of regulatory aspects, input on the internal norms of financial institutions, analysis and consultancy services with respect to a large range of aspects related to the activity of financial institutions;
We provide expert advice in the areas of leasing, insurance, mortgage lending, mortgage backed security, mortgage bonds, consumer credits, factoring, purchase of debts’ portfolios, money transfer services, payment services, cash polling arrangements and intra-group netting of payments;
We provide advice on a regular basis regarding the implementation in Romania of European financial services directives and we are in permanent contact with the regulatory/supervisory authorities in the financial services field in view of ensuring a consistent approach in the areas where Romanian jurisdiction still lacks guidelines and relevant practice.

Litigation

We have extensive experience in assistance and representation in disputes involving banking and finance matters and have assisted some of the major financial institutions in litigations in Romania.

Key projects