About

An expert in corporate legal matters in the energy sector, Gavin Milne recalls he was ‘immediately drawn to the energy industry and new-build energy projects in particular’ going all the way back to his first major legal role in Calgary, Canada. His successful, decade-long private practice career ultimately saw him work for Shearman and Sterling’s Abu Dhabi office, which brought him to the Middle East and its sprawling energy operations in a legal capacity. In 2006, Milne made the move from Shearman to an internal legal role with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company and speaks highly of its effect on his career: ‘Mubadala was a perfect platform to practice intensively in newbuild, project financed energy and infrastructure projects in a series of large and challenging transactions, across a variety of sectors and working with world class external counsel and top-notch partners’. From here, he explains he took ‘increasingly senior positions within a growing Mubadala legal department before accepting a position of general counsel of the $30bn UAE nuclear program with Emirates Nuclear Energy Company’ before moving into his current role as general counsel of Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries in 2015. Milne retains the enthusiasm and enjoyment of his career that has served him so well. ‘For me’, he explains, ‘there is no better legal role than in-house GC of a large, complex and highly levered energy project, where you can focus on a single massive undertaking from the very early stages of design and feasibility and see it all the way through to completion and operations’. As someone who has been at the heart of some of the most complex and high-profile projects in the Gulf, Milne has his own clear idea of what in-house counsel should look to do for their businesses. ‘I am a big believer in breaking the legal (at least GC) role out of a traditional legal silo or any suggestion of being limited to a back-office support function’, he outlines. ‘I think the in-house legal discipline works best when partnering with the other key finance, technical and commercial departments in executive decision making and strategy; with the goal of providing proactive input early in the project development and company structuring phase in order to enjoy dividends in the future as the company matures into operations’, Milne advises.