Maria de Athayde Tavares
Head of Public & Administrative Law and Regulatory, Lisbon
"Extensive experience in advising a broad range of clients on all regulatory and public law issues of their transactions gave me a wide perspective and experience. I particularly enjoy the diversity and complexity of the issues, discovering new angles, while investing in a constant dialogue with clients – the best work is done as one team with our clients!”
Overview
Professional experience
Education and qualifications
Published works
Overview
Maria’s professional practice focuses on transactional matters and projects within highly regulated industries, providing regulatory, environmental, public law and public procurement advice to domestic and international key players.
She is predominantly active in energy and infrastructure (road and rail, healthcare and water and waste) deals and has extensive experience in PPP projects and concession contracts.
Maria works closely with the firm’s corporate and finance teams to counsel on complex regulatory issues in cross-border transactions.
Professional experience
In 2021 Maria joined the Lisbon office of Linklaters reinforcing the firm’s 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.
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 is a member of the Portuguese Association of Energy Law (APDEN) and a founding member of the recently created CAA - Círculo de Advogados de Administrativo (administrative lawyers associations).
Education and qualifications
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 a 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).
Recently 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.
Published works
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 European Energy Handbook (Eleventh Edition, 2019 - 2020) (pp. 422-432). Herbert Smith Freehills. (as co-author, prior to joining Linklaters)
- Portuguese Chapter, in European Energy Handbook (Tenth Edition, 2017) (pp. 384-393). Herbert Smith Freehills. (as co-author, prior to joining Linklaters)
- “Project finance in Portugal: overview”, in Project Finance Global Guide (2017). Practical Law. (as co-author, prior to joining Linklaters)
- “Novas Fronteiras do Princípio da Imparcialidade”, in Estudos em Homenagem a Mário Esteves de Oliveira (2017) (pp. 1047-1071). Almedina.