CORPORATE BROCHURE 2017

www.holtropslp.com T: (+34) 93 519 33 93 Vía Augusta 10, 08006. F: (+34) 93 517 56 07 Barcelona. . [email protected] 1 FIRM

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HOLTROP S.L.P. Transaction & Business Law was founded in 2008 with the ambition of creating a leading law firm in the and agribusiness sectors, with a focus on international transactions.

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Our team consists of: Piet Holtrop and María Ferrer in management, Natalia Escanez Comino, Jordi Pujol Puente, Christopher Smith, Jorge Andrey Sterner, Monica Martin Bengoechea, David Diego Diego, Helena Badger Queralt, Micaela Santamaría Villa and Loida Gil Mena as lawyers and Cristina López Rodriguez and Esteban Carrillo Varga at IT and administrative support. We also have the support of Abel Garriga Moyano as of Counsel with respect to intellectual property matters..

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“The last two words of our name reflect our ambition to advise our clients with respect to all legal issues they encounter in their everyday business activity.”

5 CHARACTER

6 CHARACTER ‘‘Our blog is our primary means of communication’’ To have character means to be persistent in the pursuit of long term gratification, we do this through mutual Piet Holtrop participates and shapes the public debate commitment with our clients to energy transition, as an through his blog “Brussels, Luxembourg or Madrid” in the expression of our loyalty to climate goals. Free after publication Energías Renovables, in the blog “Energy as a Aristotle, our lema is that we are what we repeatedly do: right” in Fundación Renovables, 20Minutos, and he writes Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We as a member of the club of experts in Energy News. He do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, also regularly publishes in the website of Fundación but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. Renovables, El Periódico de la Energía, and other We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an national publications. act but a habit.

In 2010 we were one of the first law firms to provide a blog in Spanish and English.

Since then our blog has become our principal means of communication.

We write on a weeky basis on legal issues related to the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors, intellectual property questions and our transactional experience.

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We are partners of the following industry organizations: We actively participate in the Legal Working Group of APPA, UNEF, AEDIVE, the Platform for a New Energy APPA, the PPA Working Group of UNEF, and we Model (PX1NME), Secartys, the Energy Efficiency represent APPA and PX1NME in national and international Cluster of Catalonia, the Catalan Winemaking Cluster, tribunals on a Pro Bono basis. and the Catalan Cluster. The specialist and general press frequently consult our We show our commitment to these organizations through Firm regarding developments in our sector, and its frequently sponsoring events and via the participation of regulatory evolution in general. It is for this reason that our our professionals on their panels and discussion groups, as Firm is one of the most cited in our sector as a legal well as speaking at key events. reference for the press.

8 RENEWABLES AND THE ENERGY TRANSITION

9 RENEWABLES AND THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Our growth is thanks to an attitude that combines our ‘‘We have always fought social values and our business competitivity. We are a firm that takes a clear ‘pro-renewables’ position, and we for a 100% renewables do not represent clients that are incompatible with this world.” position.

Our defence of the renewable energy sector in Spain is a good example of this: we won the Spanish Eurosolar Prize in 2015.

10 RENEWABLES AND THE ENERGY TRANSITION

We currently defend more than 3.500 renewables ‘‘We currently defend installations of a variety of different technologies on behalf of thousands of different clients, including more than 3.500 individuals, small businesses and companies listed on the renewables installations IBEX 35. of a variety of different technologies’’

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We also represent APPA, AEOLICAN, ACER, ‘‘We fight to return legal Greenpeace, Eurosolar, Solartys, the Catalan Energy Efficiency Cluster and the Platform for a New Energy certainty to Europe and Model in various litigations at a national and international Spain’’ level. With respect to the Platform for a New Energy Model, we provide our representation pro bono.

These cases and processes are a necessary evil in returning legal certainty to Europe, starting with Spain.

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We are giving it our all to secure a favourable result for ‘‘We understand our our clients in the Court of Justice of the European Union. duty to deliver a

Our firm has a considerable media profile, given that concise and precise we understand our duty to deliver a concise and message regarding the precise message regarding the electricity sector to the wider public. electricity sector to the wider public’’

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Our litigation and claims before the European Commission and the European Parliament are ‘‘We are what we do every day’’ particularly relevant and have been supported by almost the entirety of the renewables sector in Spain.

Piet Holtrop has presented petitions and complaints We observe major advances with respect to Smart regarding self-consumption and payment mechanisms Cities, where we advise on matters such as energy for renewables before the European Parliament. efficiency, district heating and cooling, smart networks, self-consumption and electric vehicles. Various causes of action presented by our Firm have resulted in the commencement of investigations by the European Commission against Spain.

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Finally, we highlight our participation in different collaborative financing platforms, such as ECrowd! and Firmeza Solar and advising on the Crowdfunding Citizen Energy Project. Recently we have launched out own Equanimity Litigation platform, which aims to link justice and crowdfunding.

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Regarding transactions, HOLTROP S.L.P. Transaction & Business Law has always been a firm orientated towards providing corporate advice, with a particular emphasis on international transactions, principally the acquisition of companies and renewable energies projects. Over the years we have acted on the sale- purchase of more than 1,500 MW of renewables projects.

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17 WINEMAKING

With a lower profile, but no less consistently, we act in ‘‘In our Firm we have other sectors of the economy. The agribusiness sector, and in particular the winemaking industry, has been the always had a strong second ‘focus’ of our firm since its inception in Spain. pipeline of transactional work”

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In 2015 we advised SPI Group in its acquisition of the Señorío de Arínzano winery from the Gran Feudo group, a group owned by the FENIX fund (a consortium of banks including BBVA, Banco Santander, CaixaBank, Sabadell, Bankia and Popular) and represented in the Transaction by Gómez Acebo-Pombo.

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In the following years we closed a number of additional ‘‘Our first substantial transactions that were already in process in the sector. experience in the sector Our first substantial M&A transaction in the industry was in 2002, regarding a winery in ‘el Priorat’. Piet Holtrop, then was in an M&A with another firm, acted in the successful closing of the transaction in 2002” transaction.

20 COMMUNICATION

21 COMMUNICATION

Communication and its dynamics can make or break a ‘‘We carry out our work in commercial negotiation. Spanish, Catalan, English, Speaking a number of languages is an essential condition in leading to a successful outcome; we carry out our work French, Dutch, Italian and in Spanish, Catalan, English, French, Dutch, Italian and German” German. We have a long multicultural tradition, and have acted on transactions involving clients based in Spain, France, Germany, Holland, the UK, the US and Argentina.

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When it comes to negotiating the terms of a transaction, ‘‘We are recognised as we combine our intercultural experience with creativity and a profound legal knowledge of transactional law. facilitators of successful

We are recognised as facilitators of successful transactions’’ transactions, always providing the maximum level of attention to detail in order to identify every possible contingency.

23 RATES

24 RATES

Billing by the hour and the classic legal model has lost ‘‘We work using “Alternative its importance in the legal world over the years and as such we do not include this methodology in our Fee Arrangements” (AFA), or professional offers. The closest we come is in our methods of alternative billing’’ billable hour, which is set at 250€/hour. In an engagement where we work ‘by the hour’, all of our lawyers will use this rate.

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We usually offer a discount of up to 30% on these rates if ‘‘In almost all of our we anticipate that we will incur substantial hours on the engagement. We offer further discounts where if include engagements we share success fees. We generally use closed fixed-fees wherever it the risk with our clients is possible to accurately predict the time we will spend on a matter. through the inclusion of

Where we have a high level of control over the task, for success fees” example in Due Diligence exercises, we offer a task-based fee as opposed to time-based.

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The objective of our economic proposals is that our client ‘‘We want to foster can calculate the total cost of our services without receiving surprises. We participate in the litigation and long-lasting transactional risk through our innovative fee structures. We relationships with our want to foster long-lasting relationships with our clients, and to grow with them. clients, and to grow with them’’

27 CONTACT

28 CONTACT

We would be delighted to meet with you to explain everything you ‘‘You can keep up to need to know about us. date with our daily Vía Augusta 10, 08006. activity at Barcelona. Spain. T: (+34) 93 519 33 93 www.holtropblog.com’’ F: (+34) 93 517 56 07 [email protected]

Twitter @pietholtrop

29 www.holtropslp.com T: (+34) 93 519 33 93 Vía Augusta 10, 08006. F: (+34) 93 517 56 07 Barcelona. Spain. [email protected] 30