In a Q&A with IFLR, a White & Case team led by partners Olga Fedosova, Ian Clark and Prat Vallabhaneni, and associate Isabella Bellera Landa, discuss their role advising El Salvador on the world's largest debt-for-nature conversion for river conservation.
In the piece, the team shares insights on the bespoke nature of the deal, the challenges that were overcome and the outlook for debt-for-nature conversions in the future.
"El Salvador is a longstanding client that White & Case has advised on a number of transformative projects since 2021," says Clark. "This successful representation, in addition to our experience handling pioneering debt-for-nature swaps and other high-profile capital markets transactions in Latin America, positioned us to obtain the mandate."
"The transaction has a number of sophisticated legal mechanisms that incentivize El Salvador to comply with its conservation commitments," notes Fedosova. "This includes not only monetary payments in case of commitments default, but also payments in case of any subsequent abandonment of such commitments."
In regard to what we can expect for the future of debt-for-nature swaps in Central America and beyond, Vallabhaneni says, "debt-for-nature swaps already proved to be great products for sovereigns," and notes that expects that DFNs will continue to cast a wider net in terms of what initiatives the savings can support going forward.
See the full IFLR article here.
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