Scott C. Senecal is a partner based in the Moscow office of Cleary Gottlieb.
Mr. Senecal’s practice focuses on financial and corporate law. He has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, capital market transactions and syndicated loans. Mr. Senecal is consistently cited as one of the leading lawyers in Russia by such publications as
Chambers Global and
The European Legal 500.
Mr. Senecal regularly advises on mergers and acquisitions transactions and joint ventures, representing foreign investors (both private equity and corporate) and Russian entities, such as TPG (including investments in the food retail and banking sectors), Citigroup Venture Capital (including investments in the real estate and warehousing sectors), Finmeccanica/Alenia (including its joint venture with Sukhoi to manufacture and market the SuperJet-100), Fiat (including its joint venture with Severstal-Auto / Sollers), Bekaert (including its greenfield metal cord production plant in the Lipetsk special economic zone), Rosinter Restaurants (including its business alliance with YUM! / KFC and its joint venture with Costa Coffee) and Promsvyazcapital. Mr. Senecal has advised on many significant Russian securities offerings by Russian corporates and banks such as the initial public offerings of Rosinter Restaurants and Wimm-Bill-Dann and equity and debt offerings by Gazprom, Norilsk Nickel, Razgulay, Sberbank and VTB. In addition, he also frequently advises on syndicated loans and pre-export financings, having represented Russian borrowers such as Gazprom, Sberbank, Tatneft and Zenit Bank in over $10 billion of financings, including project financings such as the $2.6 billion financing of Gazprom’s Blue Stream Project to build and operate a gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey under the Black Sea (cited by the International Financial Law Review as its international project finance deal of 2000) and Tatneft’s $2 billion project financing for the construction of a new oil refinery in Tatarstan.
Mr. Senecal joined the firm in 1989, became counsel in 1999 and was elected partner in 2005. He has been resident in the New York, London, and Hong Kong offices and since 1996 has headed the Moscow office. In 1993, Mr. Senecal was stationed in Kuwait, where he advised on war reparation claims and on sovereign borrowings and asset management. Mr. Senecal received a J.D. degree,
cum laude, from New York University School of Law in 1987, where he served under Professor Thomas M. Franck as a Junior Fellow at the Center of International Studies. He received an undergraduate degree,
magna cum laude, from Columbia College in 1984. He also served as law clerk to the Honorable Jane R. Roth of the federal district court of Delaware.
Mr. Senecal is a member of the Bar in New York