About

After a strong private practice career, and proving that he could successfully organise and grow project finance departments at three different law firms, in April 2008, Robert L. Vitale left Paul Hastings to join Trust Company of the West (TCW), as the chief legal officer for, and managing director of, TCW’s energy and infrastructure group – the EIG. As part of EIG’s senior management, during 2009-2010, he negotiated a spin-out of the EIG from TCW and in January 2011, EIG Global Energy Partners commenced operations as an independent entity, with Vitale in the role of general counsel and managing director. He is also a member of the EIG’s executive committee, a regular participant on the investment committee and one of several equity owners of the business which now employs over 13 professionals, with seven offices in six countries and approximately $15bn AUM under current management. ‘When I first started to build out the legal department, we had so many things to do and so little time or manpower to do them that our associate counsel were largely doing anything that came over the transom – compliance work, corporate work, regulatory matters, transactional matters, fund formation, etc. Once we had our proper footing, however, I went back into the department staffing and created distinct roles for a compliance group, a corporate group, and a transactional group’. Vitale also embarked on a mission to create a specialised internal legal website to store all manner of company diagrams for over 200 companies. This includes legal memoranda and training aides to allow any of the attorneys and investment professionals to tap into this data base 24/7, ‘because with offices worldwide, there is always an EIG GEP office open for business’ explains Vitale. Earlier in his career Vitale also chaired the Project Finance Committee of the New York City Bar Association.