Thomas Mahaffey has more than thirty-five years of experience representing lenders and investors in domestic and international transactions, including negotiating and structuring corporate and governmental lending arrangements, international acquisitions and divestitures, international asset management operations, syndications and placements. As a former Associate General Counsel at both the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), he has decades of experience in international dispute resolution, distressed assets, and project finance. Tom’s practice focuses on international project finance transactions in developing countries, managing troubled and non-performing loans, configuring and negotiating claims resolutions with foreign governments and non-governmental entities. He also has extensive experience structuring and formulating litigation, pre-litigation, and salvage strategies involving political risk insurance and credit enhancement.

Tom has represented government, agency, and non-governmental entities in domestic and international debt restructuring and collection matters and, for many years, was a frequent speaker on these topics. His lending and project finance experience includes initiating, monitoring, renegotiating, documenting, and restructuring projects involving private, public, and governmental entities, private equity funds, public-private partnerships, airlines, hotels, manufacturing, and power projects throughout the world. He has also created new structures that facilitate project financing arrangements, including devaluation protections, investment incentives, delegations of authority, and use of derivatives and hedges.

Tom’s experience in negotiating and resolving claims and potential claims while serving as lead claims counsel for MIGA includes functioning as lead attorney in projects involving more than 30 countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America and Eastern and Central Asia. These projects involved the financial, telecom, agricultural business, manufacturing and services sectors. Tom has been responsible for all aspects of claims processing and management, including advising on claims determination and resolution, determination of quantum, and salvage. His experience also includes negotiation and drafting of insurance contracts, reinsurance treaties, and claim cooperation agreements in 20 countries in Asia, South America, Europe, and Africa.

Tom has also developed and implemented new political risk insurance products to expand the role of official political risk insurers. These products included providing coverage for a public offering of sovereign debt, comprehensive coverage for state-owned enterprises, and, for the first time, applying coverage for the non-honoring of sovereign debt to a capital markets transaction.

Education:
 

• University of Texas
  School of Law (J.D.)
   

• University of Texas at Austin (B.A.)
   

Bar Admissions:
 

• Texas Bar