Top Dealmakers of the Year 2016—Industrial: Miles Plaskett, Duane Morris

Miami partner Miles Plaskett helped lead a team of Duane Morris lawyers who herded some highly sophisticated cats to pull together a record financing vehicle for a liquefied natural gas project in Texas.

The lawyers represented Industry Funds Management, an Australian global asset handler with a 20 percent stake in the estimated $7.5 billion project. The value of the financing transaction is about $2 billion, reportedly a record for LNG facilities in the U.S.

When the project is completed in 2019 on Quintana Island off Freeport, Texas, three liquefaction plants, known as trains, will be producing gas for clients around the world.

Plaskett worked with seven Duane Morris colleagues to take the financing accord from its inception in summer 2013 to a final-phase closing in March 2015. Other lead counsel were Sheila Slocum Hollis in Washington, a specialist in federal energy regulation, and Joel Ephross in Houston, who focused on financing, corporate review and Texas regulatory issues.

This was the third LNG financing deal Plaskett worked on with Hollis, "and they came about pretty much the same way," he said. They were referrals from Linklaters, the U.K.-based law firm whose energy group is headed by Plaskett's college roommate and best friend.

Plaskett's client is a pension fund-owned company with more than $46 billion in assets and offices in London, New York and now Freeport. "They're really big, they're aggressive and they're smart," he said.

Beyond the sheer number of parties involved—27 investment banks and lawyers from about a dozen other firms—the deal presented several challenges.

Project terms had to be negotiated with environmental advocacy groups, labor unions and federal and local officials. Financing interests had to obtain special permission to sell LNG to countries that are not signatories to U.S. free trade agreements.

There are limits, and they had to be clarified. "We're not selling the LNG to Iran or another country like that," Plaskett said.

The hardest part "was staying on top of the FERC [Federal Energy Regulation Commission] applications," he said. That involved commissioning an environmental impact study to fend off a challenge by the Sierra Club, which demanded review because of concerns about potentially polluting the Old Brazos and New Brazos rivers that converge at Quintana Island.

Some cultural translation work was needed to get the IFM people from Australia up to speed on labor unions and environmental groups, Plaskett said.

"We had to advise clients who aren't U.S. clients and used to dealing with these types of issues how to go about doing it," he said. "They were happy for that kind of advice."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Business Review, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.