Maria de Athayde Tavares

Maria de Athayde Tavares is a Managing Associate in the Finance Department of Linklaters Lisbon and the Head of its Public Law and Regulatory practice.

She has extensive experience in advising domestic and international corporate clients, banks and financial institutions in all regulatory, environment  al and public law issues relevant to M&A and financing transactions and projects, in highly regulated sectors, with a special focus on the energy, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors.

Maria is particularly active in energy deals, having for example managed the regulatory and licensing aspects of several greenfield and brownfield renewable and electric mobility projects in Portugal.

Furthermore, Maria has extensive experience in PPP projects and concession contracts in the road, health and water and waste sectors, having advised sponsors, lenders, purchasers and sellers.

Interested in the blue economy, Maria has been involved in the BLUEBIO ALLIANCE (BBA), active in the marine bioresources and blue biotech sectors, since its inception, and was a Member of its Executive Board from 2016 to 2021.

Maria started her legal career in 2006 as Trainee at the local law firm ATPR - Sociedade de Advogados, where she became an Associate Lawyer and Partner. In 2013 Maria joined Campos Ferreira, Sá Carneiro & Associados where she became a Senior Associate.

In 2021 Maria joined the Lisbon office of Linklaters as Managing Associate in the Finance Department, reinforcing the firm’s Finance, Energy & Infrastructure practice areas. She is the Head of its Public Law and Regulatory practice, where she is involved in advisory, transactional and preventive work.

Additionally, Maria is a member of the APDEN, the Portuguese Association of Energy Law.

Maria holds a Law Degree of the Faculty of Law of the Lisbon University of Lisbon (2006). During her law studies she studied at the Faculty of Law of the Université Libre de Bruxelles within the Erasmus Program. Maria also did a Post-graduate course in Consumer Law at the Faculty of Law of the Lisbon University (2008).

Furthermore, Maria completed the curricular unit of the Master's in Administrative Law, at the Lisbon School of Law of the Catholic University of Portugal (2015).

She additionally attended the Post-graduate course in Water Law at the Faculty of Law of the Lisbon University (2016), and an intensive course on The Public Contracts Code Reform: impact of the new EU Directives at the Catholic University of Portugal (2016).

Maria has completed the Advanced Management programme in Energy (AMEG) of the AESE Business School and the Portuguese Energy Association (APE) (2020).

Maria is a fully qualified Member of the Portuguese Bar Association since 2009.

She speaks Portuguese, French and English.

Maria is a published author and has published a range of articles on project finance & energy law, a selection of which is shown here:

• Portuguese Chapter, in The International Covid-19 Response: An overview. A Special Edition of The European Energy Handbook (May 2020) (pp. 92-94). Herbert Smith Freehills. (as co-author)
• Portuguese Chapter, in European Energy Handbook (Eleventh Edition, 2019 - 2020) (pp. 422-432). Herbert Smith Freehills. (as co-author)
• Portuguese Chapter, in European Energy Handbook (Tenth Edition, 2017) (pp. 384-393). Herbert Smith Freehills. (as co-author)
• “Project finance in Portugal: overview”, in Project Finance Global Guide (2017). Practical Law. (as co-author)
• “Novas Fronteiras do Princípio da Imparcialidade”, in Estudos em Homenagem a Mário Esteves de Oliveira (2017) (pp. 1047-1071). Almedina.