Year: 2019

Elena Bolonina is a third-year law student at South Texas College of Law Houston graduating in May 2020. She is the Vice-President of AIPN’s Student Club at South Texas College of Law Houston and a member of AIPN’s Young Negotiators group. Elena was awarded an AIPN Scholarship for 2019-2020 and TYLA Diversity Scholarship first place award in 2018. She recently organized the annual joint AIPN US Chapter and South Texas College of Law event “International Series: Latin America”. Since her first year of law school, Elena has been working as a Research and Teaching Assistant to Professor Lewinbuk. Elena created a network for American training on attorney regulations for Russian Federation. Together with the Professor Lewinbuk, she developed trainings and master-classes in various prominent law schools and institutions, including Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Russian Federal Bar Association, and “Garant” (Russian equivalent to LexisNexis.) Elena took an active role in researching and editing the second edition of the course book titled “Connecting Ethics & Practice: A Lawyer’s Guide to Professional Responsibility” (Wolters Kluwer 2019) and has been mentioned in its acknowledgements. She is a Certified Mediator and is fully bilingual in English and Russian. Before law school, Elena was a business owner, and acquired a Paralegal certificate from Louisiana State University Shreveport (LSUS). Prior to moving to the USA, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Russian State University for the Humanities, and worked for the American Council for International Education in Moscow, Russia. Elena co-authored articles published in the second edition of “Connecting Ethics & Practice: A Lawyer’s Guide to Professional Responsibility” and St. Mary’s Law Review Symposium on Legal Malpractice & Ethics (to be published in 2020). In her spare time, she enjoys being outdoors with her daughter, swimming, and travelling.

Kelly Ripley completed a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish in 2001, Master of Science in Accountancy in 2002 from the University of Houston and a Juris Doctor from South Texas College of Law in 2007. She is a former certified public accountant and licensed attorney in the State of Texas. She began her career with ExxonMobil where she worked in the upstream international federal tax and severance tax departments and the tax law appeals and litigation group after completing law school.

 

In 2008, Kelly joined Shell Oil Company and has held various positions including commercial lead for Alaska and Latin America, Chemicals Commercial Manager, Business Opportunity Manager for the Americas, and US and Mexico Gulf of Mexico Commercial Advisor. In these roles, she has been responsible for managing current asset commercial agreements and supporting acquisition and divestment activity to optimize the respective portfolio.

 

Currently, Kelly is the Asset Commercial Manager for Shell Iraq and manages all key commercial interests of the Shell Iraq JV interest in Basrah Gas Company, supports the JV in maximizing its license value through a range of opportunities (upstream gas supply, liquids processing and extraction, domestic supply and exports to regional and global markets), manages the interface with potential petrochemical opportunities, and supports further development and execution of Shell Iraq’s growth strategy.

 

Her career highlights include working with multi-discipline and ad hoc teams from Shell internal businesses to grow, and subsequently dilute, the unconventional and offshore portfolios in South America, leading fiscal and regulatory negotiations for deepwater operations in Colombia, maximizing the Aromatics commercial margin for the Deer Park petrochemicals plant, and performing stakeholder value proposition analysis in Alaska and South America.

 

Kelly has been a member of AIPN since 2009 and currently serves as the MENA Regional Chapter Director. She is also a member of the Model Contracts Workshop Committee, Model Contracts Review Committee, and the Asset Purchase Agreement Drafting Committee. Formerly, she was a part of AIPN Young Negotiators.

Ha is a partner in VILAF’s Energy Practice Group and regularly counsels Fortune 500 clients in many of Vietnam’s largest acquisitions, concession right negotiations, project development and financing works, disputes, and regulatory audits and controversies. His works often involve complex and demanding legal, political, and diplomatic considerations. He has been instrumental in the formation and drafting of the key policies and regulations for the entire energy chain in Vietnam (oil and gas, traditional power, and renewable energy).

 

Ha is a strong believer in the objectives of AIPN and has been actively promoting AIPN activities and interests in Vietnam. He has been a Vietnam representative in the Executive Committee of the AIPN’s Asia Chapter since 2010. Ha served as an AIPN Board Director at large during 2013-2016.

 

Ha graduated from Hanoi School of Law in 1995 (LL.B) and Warwick University School of Law in 1999 (LL.M).

Alexandra Rotar is an associate at the Moscow office of Morgan Lewis. Alexandra focuses on providing legal advice to companies investing and operating in the Russian and CIS oil and gas, power, renewable energy, metals and mining, and natural resource sectors.

 

Over the past ten years, she represented clients on significant transactions in the energy sector, with a focus on joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. She also advises clients on commercial transactions such as supply agreements and service contracts as well as on compliance with corporate, industrial, regulatory and environmental regulations applicable to companies doing business in the energy sector.

 

Legal 500 EMEA 2019 considers Alexandra to be “a key name for joint ventures, contractual supply arrangements and regulatory matters specific to the Russian energy sector”.

 

Alexandra is an author of over twenty publications in the energy sector, ranging on topics from unconventional resources to Russian LNG export liberalization, to environmental liability for off-shore oil & gas operations.

 

Alexandra is a mother to two little boys who test and train her negotiation skills 24/7 but never let a day pass without a smile. Faced with challenges of combining family and career, Alexandra has been inspired to write a book about what it takes to be a working mother based on interviews, that she has had with other working mothers who shared their experience and advice.

 

Alexandra has been leading AIPN’s Young Negotiators in Russia for a number of years. In May 2019, she was appointed to be the AIPN Regional Director for the CIS-FSU Chapter.

Jaime Bacud (‘’Jimmy’’) has recently assumed the position of Vice President for Upstream Operations in PNOC Exploration Corporation (PNOC EC), the oil, gas and coal subsidiary of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Company. PNOC EC is mandated by the Philippine government to take the lead in the exploration, development and production of the country’s oil, gas and coal resources.

 

Jimmy is a Geologist by profession and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of the Philippines and a Master of Science degree from the University of Sydney, Australia.

 

Jimmy previously worked at the Oil and Gas Division of the Philippine Department of Energy where he acquired his initial exposure in the petroleum sector more than 25 years ago. Prior to that, he was doing mineral exploration work, particularly gold, in the southern Philippines.

 

Jimmy is a member of the AIPN, Southeast Asia Petroleum Exploration Society (SEAPEX) and the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE). He is currently a member of the Philippines Steering Committee of the AIPN Asia Regional Chapter. He has been assisting in the organization of Asia Chapter Events in Manila since its inaugural talk back in December 2011.

Shakwa Nyambe is a Namibian specialized energy lawyer and the Managing Director at the law firm Shakwa Nyambe & Company Inc. Shakwa Nyambe & Company Inc. is a law firm with headquarters in Windhoek, Namibia solely dedicated to serving clients in the energy and natural resources sector.

 

Shakwa holds a postgraduate degree of Masters of Laws in Oil & Gas Law with Professional Skills (LLM) from the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, a Postgraduate Diploma in Drafting and Interpretation of Contracts from the University of Johannesburg, a Baccalaureus Juris degree and a Bachelor of Laws degree both respectively from the University of Namibia.

 

Shakwa previously worked as a Legal Counsel at the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia, as a Chief Legal Officer at the Ministry of Justice, Namibia and as a State Advocate at the High Court of Namibia.

 

Shakwa is a member of the AIPN, Energy Institute and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Apart from serving on the drafting committees for the AIPN Farmout Agreement and the Asset Purchase and Sale Agreement, Shakwa currently serves as the Alternate Director for AIPN’s Africa Regional Chapter while at the same time serving as the country representative for Namibia on the Africa Regional Chapter Committee.

 

When Shakwa isn’t advising clients in the energy and natural resources sector, he enjoys exercising at the gym, participating in marathons, watching business and current affairs news and collecting music records. Shakwa is also involved with a community voluntary association in Namibia, which advocates for the social and economic upliftment of people in rural areas.

Michael Polkinghorne is a civil and common law qualified lawyer, head of the arbitration group at White & Case LLP in Paris and joint-head of the firm’s oil and gas practice. He has during his career lived in Australia, England, Vietnam, Thailand and France.

 

He has served as counsel and arbitrator in disputes arising in over a dozen countries, notably in the oil & gas sector. He also advises clients in energy and infrastructure development transactions. He has advised and represented petroleum clients on multiple price reopener disputes (gas and renewables), gas supply storage and transit, oil field acquisitions and PSAs. Michael is admitted to practice in Australia, England and France.

 

Michael is a member of the AIPN, the IBA/LPD Task Force for the UNIDROIT Principles 2016, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb), the IAI (International Arbitration Institute), the ICC Commission on Arbitration, and the Council of the ICC Institute of World Business Law. Michael is also a member of the Legal Advisory Task Force of the European Energy Charter Secretariat that recently wrote the “Handbook on General Clauses Applicable to Investment Agreements in the Energy Sector” (Energy Charter Secretariat, 2017). Michael is also the Editor of the ICC Institute Newsletter – Institute of World Business Law (ICC), and an Assistant Editor of Les Cahiers de l’Arbitrage—The Paris Journal of International Arbitration.

 

Michael has written extensively on energy dispute resolution and foreign investment and provides courses on long-term energy contracts and dispute resolution. He is also the author of the Paris Energy Series, a legal periodical which has covered a plethora of oil and gas related topics. He was also co-author of “Price Re-Openers In Long-Term Gas Supply Agreements” (Juris, August 2015).

 

Michael has written chapters in many other books but does not suggest you read them.