About

Number of years practice: 7 Principal practice areas: Projects and energy, project finance, M&A Bar admissions: Mexico, New York, District of Columbia (special legal consultant) Languages spoken: English and Spanish

Alan Sakar Azuara is a dual Mexican-US qualified member of Clifford Chance’s Americas Energy and Infrastructure Group. He frequently acts for US and Mexican entities on a range of corporate and financial matters. Particularly strong in project finance, he also has experience in cross-border M&A and restructuring as well as Mexican capital markets. He has also acted for the Mexican government at federal, state and municipal levels, and for financial institutions and public and private companies on PPPs. Stand-out Mexican matters include advising Bancomext, ING and KfW on their $209m loan to Fotowatio Renewable Ventures to finance the construction of the San Luís de Potosí power plant, the largest of its kind in Latin America. He has also acted for Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos and Denmark’s Export Credit Agency on financing two Oaxaca wind farms with an aggregate capacity of 396MW. In the telecoms space, Sakar assisted Altán Redes with winning the 20-year PPP contract to build an open-access wholesale wireless network covering 92% of Mexico’s population. This involved a two-part project financing. The deal is the first ever PPP agreement, as well as the largest current infrastructure development in Mexico’s telecoms sector. ‘The Mexican legal industry is known for being sophisticated’, comments Sakar. ‘As international counsel, we rely on our preferred local counsels to help us both create the synergies expected by our clients and deliver the best service available in the market. Each jurisdiction has its own challenges, and we make a point of understanding Mexico’s unique cultural and commercial landscape. Together with our preferred local counsels, we are able to adapt and implement solutions that have been proven in other jurisdictions. As international counsel, our success lies in our proven ability to establish synchronized and efficient communications among all parties. In the financing of projects, for instance, we help foreign entities understand Mexico’s local practices and nuances and make sure that all local players comply with the requirements of the foreign entities. We are deeply familiar with the regulatory, legal, social, environmental and political implications of doing business in Mexico, and we understand the procedures and expectations of the key stakeholders, including government regulators, operators, and enterprises such as the Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE), the Centro Nacional de Control de Energía (CENACE) and the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).’