Areta focuses her multifaceted practice on the development, acquisition, and financing of renewable energy and other infrastructure projects across a range of sectors, including solar, wind, waste, biomass, biofuels, and wastewater. Areta has significant experience drafting project development and financing documents, ownership agreements, and conducting due diligence. Her clients include lenders, borrowers, and project sponsors in the energy and financial services sector as well as government agencies.
Prior to joining Mintz, Areta was an associate, and earlier a summer associate, with an international law firm, where she advised parties involved in all aspects of developing, acquiring, and financing energy and infrastructure projects.
While attending law school, Areta interned with the International Development Law Organization in Rome as a Mead International Fellow. In law school, she served as an articles editor for the Journal of International Law, a senior editor of the Journal of Law & Public Affairs, and assisted with the Guild Food Stamp Clinic, Penn Law Advocates for the Homeless, and International Human Rights Advocates.
As an undergraduate, Areta interned at the US Department of State in the Office of the Coordinator of US Assistance for Europe and Eurasia as well as with the Polish American Congress.
Experience
- Represented a leading clean power producer and energy storage company, in the formation of a joint venture to develop, build, own, and operate one of the first offshore wind projects in the NY Bight lease area.
- Representing a prominent infrastructure company in the first proposed automated vehicular interstate highway lane.
- Represented Mitsui in acquiring, subsequently developing and financing, and recently selling to TotalEnergies, a 97 MW wind project in Argentina.
- Represented EnBW North America, the US subsidiary of German energy company EnBW that has been focused on developing offshore wind projects in the United States, in its sale to TotalEnergies
- Represented SunPower in the $250M sale of its C&I division (assets/projects and employees) to TotalEnergies.
- Represented Mitsui in acquiring a platform for a utility scale solar + storage projects in Texas.
- Represented Sojitz on all aspects of its platform investment into and build-out of its US solar project portfolio
- Representing BBAR in a high-profile 130,000 sq. foot Bridge Park connecting Washington, DC to Anacostia with an environmental museum, gardens, amphitheater, a boat launch, and other civic amenities
- Represented Renew Energy Partners in the development and financing of energy infrastructure assets to provide “energy as a service” for Blue Oval City, Ford Motor’s $11B new EV assembly complexes in Tennessee and Kentucky
- Representing a leading financial services company on the formation of a joint venture for the purposes of investing in a broad range of “Green” financial products, including commercial property assessed clean energy (C-PACE) and green mortgages, among others
- Represented Logical Buildings, a leading smart building software and solutions company, to close a $110M, “first of its kind” energy efficiency joint venture with Keyframe Capital.
