About

Founded in 2001 in Ontario, Canada, Canadian Solar operates as a global energy provider with expanding business subsidiaries in 19 countries in six continents. Canadian Solar is both a global leading manufacturer of solar PV modules and a provider of solar energy solutions, with over 13,000 employees globally. In addition to the director and general counsel, Antonio Adami who is the compliance and data protection officer EMEA, and is responsible for special projects – mainly operating assets and development sales – the EMEA team is composed of three other members. These members include legal counsel Federica Lo Mele, who has broad expertise in dealing with solar project development, legal counsel Valentina Di Cesare who specialises in administrative law matters and deligencing solar projects, and legal counsel Francesco Vita who takes care of the over 100 operating entities, special purpose vehicles and compliance and finance corporate related matters. The team has been entirely reshuffled since 2016, with a new outlook on individual methods and processes, into a structured and organic team, with the guidelines given by EMEA general manager to establish in Milan the headquarters for EMEA operations from where the entire region is led. Further to this, the team has continuously grown in expertise in the area of the EMEA legal systems for various business matters. ‘Our team is constantly on a learning curve at the cutting-edge as new market entries arises. As Canadian Solar EMEA legal we are always the first ones to break ice into a new market and the last ones to leave the boat as a captain would do, even though we do not lead the ship’, says Adami. Amongst their most standout feats, in 2018 the team devoted its efforts to the financing and sale of a 142MW solar portfolio made up of 24 projects in the UK for US$268m to the British investment fund, Greencoat Capital. They were also instrumental in the sale of the a 6MW solar project in Namibia to the South Africa investment fund Mergence as well as the construction and sale of a 8.2MW project in Northern Ireland.