Life as a projects and infrastructure lawyer is not typically synonymous with remarkable anecdotes or adventures.
I have focused on this field since 1993 when I first started working on Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in Pakistan, and I have continued to focus my practice primarily around projects ever since.
My journey has led me through an evolving landscape starting with fossil fuels and culminating with cleaner energy such as renewables. As part of this trajectory, I now find myself in the middle of carbon generation projects, including the largest blue carbon project in the world.
While there may be plenty of anecdotes associated with changes in government and policy, I have deliberately elected to keep the politics of policy out of this brief account. I trust you can imagine the adventures associated with a hostile change in government, which often exposes all stakeholders and advisors to the rigours of strong-arm tactics where freedom is at stake and your integrity is tested to its limit.
I would, instead, mention one of my early projects, which I found to be of particular interest and perhaps worth a mention. This was the first ever hydel IPP situated in Pakistan, and more precisely in Kashmir. I found this project to be of particular interest as we had to collectively develop an offtake agreement which could provide the framework for renewable power reliant entirely upon the forces of nature. We had to allocate and price the hydrological risk associated with a run-of-the river project, downstream of a major dam. One of many anecdotes being farmers who were concerned about “electricity being extracted from water”, thereby diminishing its potency for irrigation purposes. Suffice to say that it was a learning curve for all of us.
Within a period of two years, we had the commercial terms agreed for a long-term offtake arrangement, thereby setting a template for all others to follow. This was priceless, as Pakistan was blessed with an abundance of natural hydel resources, and burdened with a substantial foreign currency deficit associated with the import of fuel stock required to supply thermal power plants.
As we marched forward to secure funding for a project which we believed to be a ‘poster-child’ for any development finance institution, we hit a massive road block. The lenders asked, “what is Kashmir?”. I trust you can imagine the difficulty in defining this territory in the context of the dispute regarding its status. To cut a very long story short, it took us 13 years to resolve this conundrum and finance the project. We had to change laws both within Pakistan and “Kashmir” and enter into bilateral tax treaties and other back-to-back arrangements, to satisfy the credit risks associated with the project. We started this process with one bank and ended up with a combination of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB)—the latter in its first ever private sector IPP project.
Today, there are a multitude of similar projects under development, leveraging on all of the work we had done between 1995 and 2008. This was an interesting chapter for Pakistan and for my career, and I am proud to have been a part of this process.
I am grateful as my career as a projects and private equity lawyer has resulted in extensive travel all over the world. I have met with many interesting people who have inspired me and taught me much about work and life. Never a dull moment, from the start of my career as an attorney at Sidley Austin in New York, to my journey through Pakistan, where I set up Afridi & Angell’s Pakistan practice, and grew it from a one lawyer operation to one of the largest firms in the country at the time. I am delighted to be back in Dubai, where I grew up as a child all the way through high school.
My fundamental approach has always been to give your very best in any given situation and to never hold back. Be bold and your best will always be appreciated and rewarded. Finally, never tell a client what cannot be done—find a way to achieve the right outcome in the best possible way.
By Masood Afridi, partner at Afridi & Angell.
