Photo of Graham Vinter

Graham Vinter

Subscribe to Graham Vinter's Posts

Graham Vinter

Graham Vinter is chair of Covington’s global Project Finance Practice Group. Prior to joining the firm, he was General Counsel of BG Group plc (2007-2015) and a member of BG Group’s Group Executive Committee, reporting to the Chief Executive.

Whilst General Counsel at BG Group, Mr. Vinter was involved in a number of projects, including the company’s largest ever project, an LNG liquefaction plant and related upstream development in eastern Australia with a combined capital cost in excess of $20 billion. In his previous career in private practice, he was involved in numerous infrastructure and energy projects around the globe, including road and rail transportation projects in Europe, power projects in Europe and Asia and LNG liquefaction projects in the Middle East.

Prior to joining BG Group, Mr. Vinter spent 27 years with a UK Magic Circle firm, including just under 20 years as a partner, and was the Global Head of its projects practice from 1996 to 2007.

Mr. Vinter was also a member of the Executive of GC100 (the Association of General Counsel and Company Secretaries of the FTSE 100) from 2010 to January 2016 and was elected to a two-year term as Chair of the organization in January 2014.

Contact: Read more about Graham VinterEmail

On 6 October 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices (the “Regulation”).  The Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 7 October. The Regulation has three main elements:

  1. A requirement to reduce electricity consumption by 5% in peak hours;
  2. A measure to return the excess revenues or profits of energy companies to the individual Member States; and
  3. The allocation of proceeds to customers to alleviate retail electricity prices and an extension to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of the categories of beneficiaries of a possible Member State intervention in the retail price.

The Regulation’s market intervention is exceptional (albeit in response to an extraordinary geopolitical market disruption).  It will have widespread positive and negative impacts for energy market sellers and buyers.  These circumstances may provoke a range of disputes, transaction (re)structurings or additional compliance obligations that will require expert advice and understanding of the details of the Regulation.…

Continue Reading EU Emergency Action on Energy

With the UK due to host the COP 26 climate summit in a year’s time, the UK Government is keen to set out its credentials as a global ‘green‘ leader and demonstrate not only that it can make good on its election promise to level up (with much of the promised Green Industrial Revolution investment being focused in old industrial heartlands in the North of England), but that it intends to seize the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to build back better and create a genuine green revolution.
Continue Reading The UK’s 10-point Green Industrial Revolution Plan

On June 21, 2018, the European Commission (“Commission”) started a new investigation to determine whether so-called destination clauses in Qatar Petroleum’s liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) supply contracts with European buyers infringe the European Union (“EU”) antitrust rules.
Continue Reading European Commission Launches New Antitrust Investigation into LNG Destination Clauses