Melissa Verplancke

Melissa is a lawyer within the Brussels Energy and Infrastructure and Real Estate practice groups, where she also leads the public law and environmental law practice. 

Her expertise spans a broad spectrum of legal areas in the regulatory field, including environmental and public law matters, energy infrastructure and public-private partnerships. She also has experience in real estate transactional work and possesses experiences in the field of administrative court procedures. 

Due to her strong regulatory background, Melissa is instrumental in the further development of our Energy and Infrastructure practice in the Brussels office, a key focus area of the firm.

Work highlights

Melissa has advised on a wide range of real estate transactions. These include advising: 

• AG Insurance, Belfius Bank, Federale Verzekering, and KBC Bank: advising the lenders to the SPI.R0 consortium on the €370m project financing for the "R0xA201" ring road interchange, a PPP by De Werkvennootschap.
• Cityforward S.Comm: advising a Belgian fund held by SFPIM, Ethias, and Whitewood on the Project Schuman transaction, a €900m deal involving the sale and lease of 23 properties from the European Commission to SFPIM, with Cityforward financing €440m via bank loan and equity. This project aims to redevelop the buildings to meet ESG standards, underscoring significant investment and government support in Brussels.
• INEOS: advising on the Belgian aspects of its project for the development and operation of an ethane cracker and PDH installation in the Port of Antwerp.
• Helexia: advising on implementing a limited-recourse financing for around 290 solar PV and energy-efficiency projects across Europe, including France, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium. 
• BlackRock: advising on the acquisition of Windvision’s businesses in Belgium, France and Spain (a development team and 2.7GW onshore windfarm development pipeline). 
• Windvision Belgium, a BlackRock portfolio company: advising on its acquisition of 100% of the shares of Vortex Energy Belgique BV, a company developing a portfolio of 224MW onshore wind and 34MW solar energy projects located in Wallonia, Belgium.
• Wind4Flanders Projects Alpha: advising as borrower on the project financing of six onshore wind farms with a capacity of 35.8MW comprising of eight wind turbines located in Flanders, partially developed as greenfield and partially as repowering projects (second generation project), with ENGIE Electrabel as project sponsor. 
• E.ON: advising on the investment against the subscription of newly issued shares in a financing round of Tree Energy Solutions (the “TES”).
• ENGIE Electrabel: advising in relation to the project financing of six on-shore wind farms comprising of 13 wind turbines located in Flanders, developed as greenfield projects by ENGIE Electrabel, together with certain public authorities located in Flanders and Brussels.
• WestInvest Gesellschaft für Investmentfonds: advising on the acquisition of all the shares in Silver Tower.

Melissa has been an Associate at Linklaters since 2014 and was promoted to Managing Associate in 2020

Moreover, she is specialized in environmental and general public law and has advised clients in the framework of: 

• refinancing of renewable energy project;
• permitting procedures and administrative court procedures;
• public procurement procedures;

Melissa holds a Master of Laws from the University of Ghent (magna cum laude).
She works in Dutch, English and French.

Melissa has contributed to the ICLG Environment & Climate Change Law 2019.