Five Leading Global Energy Project Finance Partners Join Hunton & Williams LLP

NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Hunton & Williams LLP announces Ellis Butler, John Hawkins, Raj Pande, Jeff Schroeder, and Larry Skinner have joined the firm as partners on its global Energy Project Finance team, and that Hawkins and Schroeder will serve as co-heads of the team. Pande will serve as chair of the firm's Japan practice. The five new partners bring deep project development experience to the firm, and join the firm's broader energy practice with more than 100 attorneys across numerous practice areas who represent clients throughout the United States and in more than 50 countries on six continents. The new partners come to the firm from Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, where they were also partners.

"This is an exciting addition to a strong practice group at a time when our clients around the world have a growing desire to develop new energy projects," said Wally Martinez, managing partner of Hunton & Williams.

Hunton & Williams has had a leading energy and utility practice for nearly a century and has represented a broad array of electric utility companies, unregulated energy companies, independent system operators, oil and gas companies, and lenders to and developers of some of the largest energy project financing transactions globally. The firm's project finance practice has been ranked by The American Lawyer as one of the top worldwide, and was also highly ranked in Chambers Global for 2010.

"We chose Hunton & Williams because of its outstanding history in the field and the firm's long-term commitment to energy and project finance as a core practice," said Hawkins. "The combined experience of our group and the Hunton & Williams energy team will expand the capabilities we have to meet clients' growing needs domestically and internationally," added Schroeder.

The new partners currently represent developers and financial institutions throughout the world in connection with project development, financings and acquisitions of nuclear power plants and fossil fuel plants, as well as renewable energy projects, LNG, oil and gas upstream and downstream facilities, infrastructure assets and manufacturing facilities. Some of their past project financings include: InterGen's $3.4 billion refinancing; Tokyo Electric Power Company's $3.7 billion acquisition of Mirant's power generation business in the Philippines, and Con Edison's sale of 1,706 MW (worth $1.47 billion) of generation projects to North American Energy Alliance, LLC, and Reliance Power's $4.2 billion, 3,960 MW Sasan project in India.

Hawkins and Pande will join the firm's New York office, and Butler, Schroeder and Skinner will join the Washington office.

About Hunton & Williams LLP

Hunton & Williams LLP provides legal services to corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals, as well as to a broad array of other entities. Since our establishment more than a century ago, Hunton & Williams has grown to more than 900 lawyers serving clients in 100 countries from 18 offices around the world. While our practice has a strong industry focus on energy, financial services and life sciences, the depth and breadth of our experience extends to more than 100 separate practice areas, including bankruptcy and creditors rights, commercial litigation, corporate transactions and securities law, intellectual property, international and government relations, regulatory law, products liability, and privacy and information management. For additional information visit our website at www.hunton.com.

SOURCE Hunton & Williams LLP