Europe - Netherlands

Houthoff

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Houthoff‘s ’excellent and very knowledgeable’ energy group has strong capabilities handling both regulatory and transactional work for its roster of clients. Its regulatory workload features guiding clients through issues including administrative disputes with regulators, as well as advising on planning and environmental issues, transmission tariffs, and on competition aspects of related matters. M&A and joint ventures form a large portion of the team’s transactional offering, wherein it handles restructurings and financings in the oil and gas and renewables sectors in particular. Jacques Kröner has particular expertise in transactional energy work, whilst team lead Kirsten Berger is experienced assisting with the full range. ‘True industry specialist’ Marc Van Beuge is a disputes-focused counsel to note.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘The team is very approachable, makes the client feel they can be contact them and asked any question throughout the transaction.'
  • 'The team as a whole is constantly up-to-date on developments and requests of the client which is very convenient. Discussing a topic with one member would effectively mean that the other members were informed on said topics as well.’
  • ‘An excellent and very knowledgeable energy team. We worked with them on a gas case, and we were impressed.’
  • ‘Marc van Beuge is a true industry specialist and is very easy to work with.’

Key clients

  • Porthos
  • Eni
  • ENGIE
  • Corre Energy
  • Petrogas
  • Huntsman
  • TotalEnergies SE
  • Ocean Winds
  • Plastic Energy
  • NOGEPA
  • VEN
  • VGN
  • VLNG
  • Van Oord
  • Vitol
  • Titan
  • Arkema
  • Plant One
  • Westlake
  • Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
  • Varo Energy
  • DCC
  • Renewi
  • Shareholders Alliander and Shareholders ZEH
  • Ennatuurlijk

Work highlights

  • Advised VARO, owned by Carlyle and energy trader Vitol, on its acquisition of 80% of the shares in Bio Energy Coevorden (BEC), one of the largest biogas manufacturers in Europe.
  • Advising Porthos, an EBN, Gasunie and Port of Rotterdam partnership, which aims to develop the first large-scale, open access, offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure in the Netherlands.
  • Advised DCC on its acquisition of PVO International B.V., a leading European solar and clean energy technology distributor.

Lawyers

Hall of Fame: Transactional

Kirsten Berger

Kirsten Berger

Hall of fameHouthoff

Kirsten specialises in energy law and has extensive experience in the energy and industrial sector. She acts as counsel to various energy companies and industrial companies in respect of projects, transactions, commercial contracts, joint ventures, regulatory and financial matters. As a true sector specialist she has an extensive track record in respect of: projects and project development including wind parks (onshore and offshore), power plants, gas exploration and production and industrial plants (e.g. steam or hydrogen plants, LNG terminals, pipelines etc.); M&A transactions including controlled auctions for wind parks, interests in offshore gas fields and pipelines, industrial restructurings and private M&A transactions in the sector; commercial contracting including power purchase agreements (including corporate PPA's), (industrial) gas supply agreements (including natural gas, steam, hydrogen, nitrogen etc.), transport and storage agreements, tolling agreements and refinery gas agreements utilities agreements (including water and heat); joint ventures in relation to wind parks, power plants, upstream gas projects and for innovative projects such as a waste to chemicals project; regulatory matters including connection and transportation issues, third party access, gas quality matters, program responsibility and balancing, CO2 emissions trading, SDE subsidy aspects and EU Energy Regulations; real estate aspects including pipeline issues and lease and ownership aspects.

Leading individuals: Transactional

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Kirsten Berger

Other key lawyers

Bas van der Mei, Marc van Beuge, Jacques Kröner