Christopher Shelton

Legal Director

ESG Legal Director

Practice areas

• Banking and finance
• Construction and engineering
• Energy and infrastructure
• ESG

Practice notes

Chris is an ESG Legal Director based in our Dubai office. Chris works directly with the global ESG leadership team, across all practice groups, sectors, and with all our international offices, helping develop and enhance our ESG capabilities as well as identifying and supporting our client’s with ESG issues and strategies.

Prior to joining Eversheds Sutherland he worked at a leading ESG consultancy practice, prior to which he worked for over a decade as a projects lawyer at leading international law firm including, Clifford Chance and Linklaters. Throughout Chris’s legal career he advised governments, corporates, and financial institutions on the development of renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure projects. Most recently, Chris advised a Saudi development company on its fully sustainable city-wide utility programme. 

Chris has also worked at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the World Health Organisation. He holds a BA Hons in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Birmingham (2005). In 2021 he completed the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leaderships’ course on “Business Sustainability Management”, and in 2022 he completed the Yale School of Management’s course on “Sustainability Management: Risk, Profit and Purpose”.

A selection of Chris’s legal experience includes advising:

• a Saudi development company, on the procurement of six different utilities (including 18 separate plants and associated transmission networks) for the Red Sea Project. This entirely renewable city includes the world's largest energy storage system, potable water, treated sewage effluent, solar and wind power, district cooling, solid waste and sewage treatment facilities. The foregoing are being procured on a BOT basis under a single multi-utility concession agreement
• a Saudi investment company on the procurement of six different utilities (including seven separate plants and associated transmission networks), including treated water, treated sewage effluent, solar power, district cooling, materials recovery and sewage treatment facilities. The foregoing are being procured on a BOT basis under a single multi-utility concession agreement
• an international, Abu Dhabi based energy and water company in relation to its US$54bn transaction with its majority shareholder
• an international Saudi energy and water company on its US$1.2bn landmark IPO and US$10.9bn listing on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). The IPO is the largest IPO in Saudi Arabia since Saudi Aramco's IPO in 2019
• the lenders in respect of the world's largest solar park located in Abu Dhabi, UAE - Winner of Solar Deal of the Year, IJ Global Awards 2020
• the sponsors in connection with their successful bid for the 200MW AYG-1 solar project in Armenia
• the commercial lenders, ECAs and DIFs supporting a bidding consortium with their bid for the two 500MW solar projects in Oman
• a Saudi Arabia based petrochemical company on multiple development projects, including:
  • the granting of a concession to a third party to build, own, operate a liquid nitrogen storage tank on the site
  • the development of a polyols complex on the site
  • the construction of a third party data center
• a private investment company on its US$430m investment into a petroleum coke calcining plant in Oman
• the consortium and project company in connection with the structuring, implementation, and project financing of Delimara 4 LNG-to-Power project, involving the development and construction of an LNG regasification and IPP power generation facility in Malta. Winner of European Power Deal of the Year, IJ Global Awards 2015, and shortlisted for Project Finance Deal of the Year at the 2018 IFLR Europe Awards
• a wastewater company in connection with various ongoing extensive infrastructure development projects across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and in respect of certain regulatory matters relating to the wastewater sector
• the project sponsors and the issuer on the €1.2bn project bond refinancing of the RI Expressway in Slovakia - the R1 Expressway was the first public private partnership project in the country
• the commercial lenders in connection with the proposed £110m project financing of a portfolio of onshore wind farms in the United Kingdom