About

Organised across three departments devoted to property law and land acquisition, contracts and labour law and legislative and regulatory affairs teams, all sections being manned with both senior and junior lawyers drawn from the 29-strong ranks of the function, the Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator legal team is one of the most highly regarded within Greece. Sophia Michelaki has overall responsibility for the legal function, and is the key individual in the legal unbundling of the sectors of supply and transmission of natural gas in the Greek market. She provided some further information on the key personalities in the team: ‘Under my coordination, the senior lawyers of the team are Alexis Kanatas who is an expert in land acquisition, litigation expert Michalis Karkoulias, Michalis Kontogiorgis who was one of the first lawyers in the country with a PhD in energy law and Dimitris Papadopoulos, a highly skilled expert in corporate law and financing issues’. The team received perhaps the ultimate compliment on the back of its successes in recent years from the company in 2016, when it was promoted to become part of the upper management of the business. Michelaki explains that the department has justified the faith given in it by senior management, having gone from strength to strength since then: ‘Soon after this, the lawyers of the team joined forces by forming internal groups to prepare all necessary corporate documents, agreements and procedures to ensure a smooth transition from a state-owned-company regime to a private sector one as planned within an extremely tight time frame. The share sale was successfully achieved and shares changed hands to be acquired by a powerful consortium of European Energy leaders at the end of 2018’. At all stages of the team’s development, a highly developed internal team culture and strong collaborative tendency has been key to its success. ‘The constant encouragement of building strong bonds inside the team is the guarantor of excellence’, Michelaki explains. ‘Such strong team bonds are the result of strong commitment by seniors to transfer to younger ones the lessons they have learned. This is one of our biggest qualities and skills; that each one and all rely on the others’ skills, talents, and expertise to accomplish tasks and make good things happen’.