Notable for its breadth of advice across the coal, gas and oil sectors, Jones Day is well-established within energy regulation, often advising subsidiaries of large companies due to cross-border matters arising from the firm’s international network. Johannes Willheim, the team leader, splits his time between Frankfurt and Paris and is prominent in the team’s disputes, specifically price adjustment disputes for energy supplies. With the addition of Michiel Huizinga from A&O Shearman in January 2025, the group continues to strengthen its involvement in energy infrastructure as a result of a history of advising financial investors on complex private equity transactions.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- ‘Johannes Willheim is a true expert and a very savvy and skilled negotiator. He is easy to talk to and has a good sense of what works.’
- ‘Martin Schulz is an excellent M&A lawyer who is incredibly client friendly and has excellent knowledge of the full life cycle of an M&A transaction. He coordinates his team incredibly well and has very good commercial awareness.'
- 'This is a very efficient law firm with good knowledge of the energy sector.'
Key clients
- Hynamics Deutschland GmbH
- TotalEnergies
- Alstin Capital fund
- HI Consult
- EDF (Electricité de France)
- Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH ("DEG"), Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V. ("FMO"), The Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund Limited, acting through its duly authorised agent, Ninety One SA (Pty) Limited ("EAAIF")
- RWE AG / RWE Power AG
Work highlights
Advising Hynamics Deutschland on the establishment of a large-scale green hydrogen and e-methanol joint venture with a target electrolysis capacity of 2.125 MW, with the aim of decarbonizing the petrochemical and cement industries in the Heide region (Hyscale 100 project).
Advised TotalEnergies on the acquisition of VSB Group for a purchase price of €1.57 billion (equity value and shareholder loan) from Partners Group.
Advising an investment fund of Alstin Capital on its investment as lead investor in the Series A financing round of etalytics GmbH, an award-winning software provider (AI) for energy intelligence solutions to increase energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions.
Practice head
Johannes Willheim
Other key lawyers
Martin Schulz; Michiel Huizinga; Christian Krebs