Thomson Geer assisted New York Stock Exchange listed multinational engineering, energy and infrastructure company Quanta Services Inc. (Market Cap of USD5.8billion). Quanta operates in Australia through its Australian subsidiaries in the renewable energy industry. As a consequence of financial problems being experienced by its JV partners and counterparties – a number of projects have come under significant financial stress in the last 12 months. One of these matters is the Lincoln Gap Wind Farm matter.
Lincoln Gap Wind Farm a 59 Turbine (approximately 210 Mw) wind farm located near Port Augusta in South Australia. Senvion GmbH was engaged by Singapore based renewable company Nexif to supply the wind turbines for the windfarm. Quanta was contracted by Senvion to build the windfarm. In April 2019, Senvion went into a formal insolvency administration under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany with total group liabilities of 7bn Euro. Quanta had outstanding payments in the order of $35 million owing from Senvion at this time. Our role was to ensure the security of payments made to Quanta for the substantial outstanding amounts. The work extended to registration and enforcement of multiple charges and liens in South Australia, associated proceedings in the Supreme Court of South Australia, claims under the South Australian Building Construction Security of Payment Legislation and extensive contract renegotiation/restructuring to ensure that Quanta received the money it had claimed. The Thomson Geer team crossed offices and extended to Eversheds in Germany which provided assistance with the German insolvency proceedings. Key people included Josh Marchant, Michael Barrett, Armando Scenna, Ben Thrift and Katie Ashby-Koppens in Melbourne, as well as Geoff Brennan and Chris Kelly in Adelaide.