About

ACS Infrastructure Canada is the Canadian division of the global energy construction and infrastructure engineering company that is highly experienced in handling public private partnerships and major projects around the country. Its highly respected in-house legal team is led by general counsel Mark Platteel, and is responsible for the structuring, negotiation and settlement of all documentation with procuring authorities, ACS’s partners and lenders as well as all other legal and regulatory duties. As part of this, Platteel works closely with the executive, finance, technical and project teams at ACS. A nominator identified that, ‘[Platteel] is considered a leading expert in the Canadian public private partnerships sector, and is a regular speaker, moderator or panellist at industry events and conferences’. Mark Platteel, Greg Walters, vice president legal, Meno Tessema, associate vice president, legal and Romina Vommaro, law clerk, constitute the team responsible for all legal aspects of the company’s business development activities, which principally consists of bidding for and closing new large public infrastructure projects. Platteel, Walters and Tessema have primary roles in structuring and settling legal and commercial matters for each project with procuring authorities, funders and consortium partners. In doing so, they each liaise closely with the executive, finance, technical and project management teams at the company. Romina plays a critical role supporting the team’s lawyers and is primarily responsible for RFQ and RFP compliance and corporate matters. Steven Sokalsky is the team’s legal representative on the company’s asset management team, which handles matters that arise on the growing list of project assets in Canada. Platteel and Sokalsky both report to Marc Aron, the chief legal officer for North America, who is based in Miami. Some of the impressive projects that he and the team have worked on include the Gordie Howe International Bridge, New St. Lawrence Bridge, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Finch West LRT and Highway 427 Extension projects, the refinancing of the South Fraser Perimeter Road project, the extension of the Ottawa LRT project and the bid submissions for the Go Transit East Rail Maintenance Facility. With the company’s continued success and growth in Canada, it has increased the size of the legal team and Plateel has assigned a team member exclusively to asset management matters so that the growing inventory of projects under construction or operations can be properly serviced. The company now has one of the largest portfolios of P3 infrastructure project assets in Canada that are either in construction or operations, and asset management matters and secondary market transactions will only continue to draw more resources from the legal team going forward. Platteel highlights that, ‘with a strong work ethic and a dedication to excellence, we strive to add value and make significant contributions to address complex legal and commercial challenges faced by our company, procuring authorities and project partners’.