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Portrait ofJonathan Dames

Jonathan Dames

Partner

CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English

Jonathan has been a partner since 2007.  Jonathan’s practice has traditionally been split between energy project financing and infrastructure project finance. 

Jonathan has a wealth of experience in project finance, including PFI, PF2, NPD and other forms of PPP and structured financings.  He has delivered solutions involving bank debt, bond issues (public and private placements), mezzanine financing, holdco financings and portfolio financing and worked on many deals involving IFIs and ECAs.  He acts for a mix of sponsors, funders and contractors. These clients operate across an array of sectors including accommodation, airports, blue light/emergency services, custodial and justice, defence, education, energy, health, ports, railways, roads, telecoms/IT/satellites, utility and waste infrastructure. In the last few years, he has also had increasing focused on projects in distress and contractual counterparties in dispute.

Jonathan has been at the firm for 19 years. Prior to working at CMS he worked as a SAP consultant for Druid Systems, working for, among others, GE and Cadbury’s.

Jonathan is an active supporter of a number of CSR activities in the firm including doing pro bono work for the Duchenne Children’s Trust, raising funds for the George Oliver Foundation and actively supporting the firm’s charity of the year (currently War Child).

Jonathan is one of the founding members of the firm’s band “The Stragglers”, which began in December 2003. Jonathan plays guitar. The band plays at a variety of charity fundraising events as well as being the core of an Infrastructure industry “supergroup”: Superstructure. The Stragglers won the first Law Rocks! battle of the bands in 2009. The Stragglers went international in 2015 – playing in the inaugural Law Rocks! in Dubai. 

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"He's very organised and client-focused."

Chambers, 2024

"Jonathan is very pragmatic and experienced on the finance side. He's also great to deal with."

Chambers, 2023

"Jon Dames is very able."

Legal 500, 2023

"A top-quality financing lawyer."

Legal 500, 2020

"A one-stop-shop for financing issues"

Legal 500

Relevant experience

Energy

  • Grupa Lotos on the financing of the USD 2.8bn upgrade of an oil refinery located in Gdansk, Poland
  • Royal Bank of Scotland and National Australia Bank on the financing of the TRIG Fund revolving loan to refinance existing investments and make new investments in renewable energy projects.
  • Low Carbon Solar on financing of its portfolio of solar parks in the UK.
  • Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Partners on their acquisitions and refinancing of solar assets in the UK.
  • National Grid on its OFTOs
  • EBRD on the financing of a combined cycle gas turbine facility in Alchevsk, in the region of Lugansk, Ukraine
  • Aviva on its acquisition of wind assets from RES.

Infrastructure

  • Aviva on the project financing of Rock Rails successful bid for the Moorgate Rail franchise.
  • Aviva and EIB on the GBP 300m Dumfries and Galloway non-profit distributing hospital project.
  • Acorn consortium, made up of John Laing, Interserve and Laing O’Rourke, on a GBP 170m Private Finance Initiative project to design, build, finance and operate a new children’s hospital at Alder Hey in Liverpool funded by the European Investment Bank and M&G private placement.
  • The Department for Transport on the financing of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project since 1997 and specifically in relation to: (i) a number of refinancings of Sections 1 and 2 of the CTRL involving issuing government guaranteed bonds, (ii) securitising the assets of CTRL (UK) to secure issuing public bonds and raising bank debt including financing from EIB and KfW; (iii)rolling stock leasing arrangements (including Project Velocity); (iv) the London & Continental Railways group debt assumption; (v) the restructuring and sale of Eurostar International Limited; and (vi) the procurement process and arrangement of a stapled financing solution for, and c.£2bn sale of, High Speed 1.
  • Vinci and NTrans consortium on the bank and Government guaranteed bond financing of the Moscow/St. Petersburg Toll Road PPP project.
  • Laing O’Rourke and Equitix on the Yorkshire batch of Priority Schools Building Programme.
  • Equitix on the West Yorkshire Police Training Project.
  • InfraRed on the refinancing of the HICL revolving loan to refinance existing investments and make new investments in PPP projects.
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Memberships & Roles

  • Member of the Law Society
  • International Project Finance Association
  • TIF
  • Major Projects Association 
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Education

  • 1996 – LPC (Distinction), College of Law, London,
  • 1994 - MA Cantab – 2.1, Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, Cambridge
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31/01/2024
TMT World Congress 2024
CMS lawyers are pleased to be attending the TMT World Congress 2024 held in London on 31 January - 01 February. Below you can find an overview of our attending partners, representing a large range of jurisdictions and practice areas. To arrange a meeting, please contact the individual lawyers directly. Additionally, Anne Chitan will moderate the M&A Panel - Assessing what’s next for Transactions amid Continued Macro Headwinds, Wednesday 31 January (10:55 – 11:35). At CMS, we have some of Europe’s leading legal specialists in the technology, media and communications sector. Our Digital Communications Infrastructure Team combines exceptional expertise in project and structured finance, competition regulation and large-scale investment, while our market-leading tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions team has decades of experience in the technology and communications space, including strong expertise in the areas of fibre, towers, subsea cables, network sharing, data centres and satellite. To find out more about CMS Digital Communications Infrastructure cap­ab­il­it­ies, vis­it our Digital Communications Infrastructure section. For further information, please see our partners attending the congress in the gallery below and an overview of all our expertise areas.
13/04/2023
To assign or not to assign – that’s a real question
When taking security over assets, often the default position for lenders has been to take an assignment over assets where they can, in preference to alternative forms of security such as a charge. However...
01/12/2022
Synthetic LIBOR update: 3 month synthetic sterling LIBOR to cease end March...
Our previous Law-Nows in July and October discussed the market consultation of the FCA earlier this year on the cessation of synthetic sterling LIBOR settings and its initial consideration of the potential...
28/11/2022
Synthetic LIBOR update: 3 month synthetic sterling LIBOR to cease end March...
On 23 November 2022 the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) announced that the 3 month synthetic sterling LIBOR setting will cease permanently at the end of March 2024. The FCA also launched...
10/10/2022
1 and 6 month synthetic sterling LIBOR settings to cease after 31 March...
In our Law-Now at the end of July we discussed the market consultation of the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) on the cessation of synthetic sterling LIBOR settings and the potential publication...
09/08/2022
CMS advises consortium on acquisition of further investment in Ørsted's...
International law firm CMS has advised a consortium comprised of Equitix and The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) on its agreement to acquire from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) a further...
27/07/2022
FCA consultation on synthetic LIBOR - cessation of sterling settings and...
On 30 June, the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) launched a consultation on completing the transition away from the remaining 1 month, 3 month and 6 month “synthetic” sterling LIBOR settings...
27/07/2022
FCA consultation on synthetic LIBOR - cessation of sterling settings and...
Sterling In the sterling loan market, the FCA understands that the remaining sterling LIBOR syndicated loans have been more difficult to transition, particularly in the context of complex multi-cur­rency...
27/05/2021
Financing European Digital Infrastructure
CMS and TMT Finance are proud to collaborate to present a dynamic digital panel as part of the 2021 TMT Connect series. Investment continues apace into European digital infrastructure, which is seeing...
07/11/2019
Public Procurement Forum in Amsterdam
We are pleased to invite you to the sixth CMS Public Procurement Forum that will be held at the Eye Museum in Amsterdam on 7 November 2019. The forum will discuss public private partnerships (PPP) in...
05/09/2019
Oil & Gas: Unwitting ‘on-demand’ bond by guarantor
In Rubicon Vantage International PTE Ltd v Krisenergy Ltd [2019] EWHC 2012 (Comm), the Commercial Court decided that the specific wording of a ‘charterer guarantee’ resulted in aspects of it being...
02/08/2019
Oil & Gas, Commodity / Goods Sales and Infrastructure: Guarantees - the...
The Commercial Court recently re-emphasised in Longulf Trading (UK) Ltd v Niyazi Onen Gida SAN AS & Anor [2019] EWHC 1573 (Comm) the importance of properly complying with the terms of a guarantee when...