Mitchell Silk
Partner, Allen & Overy LLP, New York, NY
Mitchell Silk is a Partner in the projects and banking department of the New York office of the global legal practice of Allen & Overy LLP. He is also head of the firm's U.S. China group. Mitchell concentrates on banking, project finance and direct investment matters and has significant experience in the energy and infrastructure sectors. He advised on many of China's landmark project financings in a number of sectors and on China's largest investment in Colombia, which was in the energy sector, as well as on major wind, gas-fired and nuclear power project acquisitions and financings in the US. He has considerable funds experience and has advised a major investment bank on the structuring, formation, marketing and financing of a large China property fund and an Asian infrastructure fund. He has also represented sponsors on a domestic U.S. infrastructure fund and a transportation debt fund, and regularly advises large pension and other funds on their fund investments. Mitchell also has a particular expertise in bank regulatory matters, including advising over 50 foreign banks on their strategic expansion in the U.S., as well as representing many PRC banks in large, complex foreign currency financings.
He has published widely on legal matters relating to Greater China, including the first monograph in English on environmental law in China, Taiwan Trade and Investment Law (Oxford University Press, 1994, 691 pp) and numerous articles in scholarly and trade journals. Mitchell was awarded (with James V. Feinerman) a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1989 to study China's practice of international law. He has lectured on project finance, energy, water and infrastructure development, foreign investment, banking law, tax administration and enforcement, environmental protection and international law at various Chinese governmental agencies (in Chinese), as well as at major conferences and universities in the U.S., Hong Kong, Taiwan, PRC and Korea. He taught international law subjects at Beijing University, Shenzhen University and Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. He was posted in Beijing from 1986–87 and in Hong Kong from 1993 until 2005, where he was head of the firm's Asia projects group from 2000–2003. Mitchell is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese and conversant in Yiddish.
Mr. Silk has a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Law from Beijing University and a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. He graduated cum laude from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He also studied at National Taiwan Normal University.