Michael Cuda

Practice Areas

Michael Cuda is a partner in the firm’s Dallas and Houston offices, where he is a member of the Asset and Corporate Finance and Energy, Infrastructure and Resources practice groups. Michael has more than 25 years of experience in business and banking transactions. His practice focuses on domestic as well as international energy and oil and gas industry financing transactions, including upstream through downstream operations, offshore production, and equipment and oilfield services finance. Additionally, Michael represents clients as developers, investors and offtakers in the wind and solar energy arenas with respect to financing transactions, PPAs and VPPAs, tax equity issues, land development issues and local and state regulatory issues. Michael also negotiates a wide range of industry documents, and works in various capacities on financial derivatives transactions and Dodd-Frank issues.

In addition to energy transactions, Michael is involved in various types of syndicated lending transactions involving international currencies and collateral, asset based lending, commodity (non-energy) finance, film, media and telecom financings, medical and healthcare finance and middle market commercial business financings.

Michael is a former restructuring, loan review and regulatory compliance banker and as a result, he regularly assists clients in structuring credit transactions that involve public and private debt, multiple debt layers, multi-tranched loans and other related complex transactions. Michael also counsels clients in specialty lending transactions, loan work-outs and other debt restructurings, including through bankruptcy proceedings.

Professional Memberships

Adam Energy Forum

Adjunct Professor of Law, William & Mary, Texas Tech University, University of Oklahoma and Texas Wesleyan University

Association of International Petroleum Negotiators

City of Arlington, Texas, Economic Advisory Committee

Commercial Finance Association

Texas Association of Bank Counsel

Turnaround Management Association

Publications

Author, "Project Finance Will Be Key To Developing Hydrogen Market," Law 360, (February 2021)

Author, “An Analysis of the Uptick in US Oil and Gas Bankruptcies Resulting from the Declining Oil Price,” Journal of Corporate Rescue and Insolvency (UK) (August 2015)

Author, “An Embarrassment of Riches: Are We Producing Too Much Gas?” American Gas Magazine (October 2012)

Author, Oil and Gas Transactions, Cases and Materials on Oil & Gas Law, Sixth Edition, Thompson West Publishing (2012)

Education