About

Subject to a European Commission run off in 2012 that changed the way that Dexia Crediop, the Italian investment bank specialising in funding public infrastructure, did business, the legal team led by general counsel Edoardo Baratella has been instrumental in the reorganisation and adaptation to this new environment, as well as crucial in the monumental success achieved in a high profile case against the city of Prato. Baratella leads a team of eight lawyers and two support staff that is encouraged to ‘take responsibility’ and provide service that works as if ‘it was appointed from a client as an external lawyer’. Managing the bank’s existing portfolio and doing so with the challenge of a downsized legal team compared to four years ago as part of a wider trend within the parent company Dexia’s businesses. By far the most important recent case the team has worked on was the aforementioned recent interest-rate swap case heard in London over a dispute with the Italian city of Prato, which Baratella describes as just one of a series of ‘very complex litigations played out in different courts’ the team has had to deal with in the recent past. The success is described by Baratella as a ‘major result, [which took] almost seven years so it was really time and money consuming and it required a lot of work as we had to appoint external lawyers to help as in-house lawyers are not entitled to take the case in front of the bar’. The result, a successful appeal lodged in the London Court of Appeals in June 2017, proves not only the diligent preparation and high level of legal expertise on behalf of the Dexia Crediop team, but will ‘stop new litigations and possible lead to a shorter time in ending other pending proceedings’, saving time and money in the future. Setting a precedent and sure to guide future cases of a similar nature in the comings months and years, the Prato case will both define the future law and cement the legal team of Dexia Crediop as part of one of the most important cases of its kind in recent years.