Claudette Christian is a partner in the firm's Finance practice group and the former Co-Chair of the Global Board of Hogan Lovells. She is the Office Managing Partner of the firm's office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Claudette has more than 25 years of commercial and corporate transactional experience, much of it international in scope. She represents sponsors, project developers, lenders and foreign governments across a broad range of commercial and financing issues, providing clients with experienced counsel and executive judgment.
Claudette regularly advises clients on a wide array of cross-border transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and the development and financing of major infrastructure projects. In recent years she has worked primarily on matters in the energy (oil, gas, and renewables), telecommunications (mobile and fiber-optic), transportation (airports and toll roads), and aviation industries for clients with operations or interests in the United States, Latin America, Africa and Europe. She has worked extensively in Brazil since 1997.
In addition to her corporate and commercial work on behalf of clients, Claudette also has wide-ranging knowledge of the loan, guarantee, and insurance programs offered by the leading multilateral and export credit agencies. She is a recognized practitioner, having taught classes on international project development and project financing.
Complementing her legal and transactional activities, Claudette is active in firm management and pro bono activities. She serves as the firm's Chief Diversity Officer and regularly speaks on issues involving leadership, diversity and inclusion. In addition to having served as Hogan Lovells' Co-Chair of its global board from 2010-2012, she has served as a member of the firm's Executive Committee and as Co-Head of the Latin America practice group. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Senior Lawyers Project, an international organization that provides legal counsel for significant commercial transactions in emerging countries on a pro bono basis, and of Women in Law Empowerment Forum, an organization comprised primarily of law firm partners that is focused on advancing women in the legal profession.
Representative Experience
- Representation of a Latin America-based international oil conglomerate in its acquisition of multiple oil drilling ships and floating production and storage offloading units (FPSOs).
- Representation of a Latin-America-based international oil conglomerate in obtaining a US$700 million loan under the U.S. Ex-Im Bank guaranteed facility.
- Representation of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority in connection with the transfer of an operating toll road to the client, the toll proceeds of which will be used to finance the construction of a new light rail line in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
- Representation of a multilateral lending agency in connection with its extension of financing to support the extension of senior loans and equipment lease products to small and medium-sized enterprises in Afghanistan with a focus on agribusiness, light manufacturing, construction, consumer goods and services.
- Representation of a large Brazilian oil and gas company in connection with the development, financing, and operation of the $2.7 billion Bolivia-Brazil Gas Pipeline Project.
- Representation of an international financial institution in the restructuring and refinancing of a wireless telecommunications project in Bolivia.
- Representation of an international energy conglomerate in connection with its purchase of wind energy farms in the United States.
- Representation of the developer of a new airport in West Africa that will offer passenger, cargo, and aircraft maintenance facilities.
- Representation of the developer of a methane-fired power plant project in East Africa.