Manuel Batista
Castillo

Senior Associate

Santo Domingo, Dominican RepublicP 809-567-8444F 809-567-8200v-card

He serves as the head of the Business Law division of the Firm. His professional practice focuses on advising clients in the structuring of projects in the energy sector and the regulatory aspect for the success of the projects thereof. He also has experience on the discussion, negotiation, and drafting of contracts, as well as in project finance in tourism and other sectors of the national economy.

Professional Career and Work Experience

Prior to joining the firm as a senior associate, Mr. Manuel Batista Castillo worked for the Corporación Dominicana de Empresas Eléctricas Estatales (CDEEE), where he occupied different positions within the Legal Department, including the position of Deputy Legal Director. As part of his duties at the CDEEE, he assisted different Bidding Committees that administered selection processes related to the activities of generation and distribution/commercialization of electric energy. Likewise, he assisted the Executing Unit of Projects financed by multilateral entities in the preparation of all types of contracts and in the supervision of the respective selection processes.

In his private practice, he has assisted clients in the development of projects in the tourism, energy, telecommunications, and other sectors of the economy, as well as in the resolution of investor-State disputes, strategic transactions, and negotiations according to the client's needs, as well as financing with private entities and multilateral organizations.

He has experience in the execution of power purchase agreements (PPA), generation technologies from renewable and traditional sources, application of alternative dispute resolution methods, implementation of procurement processes and contracting of goods, works and services, design and application of public credit operations, in addition to other related areas.

Education and Awards

Law degree from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), with academic honors -Magna Cum Laude- (2004). Subsequently, he completed a Master of Laws Degree in Corporate Business Law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM).

He participated in the "Summer Session on International Arbitration" at Washington College of Law in the United States of America (2009), and in the "Seminar on Electric Power Cooperation with China form Developing Countries, 2017" sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and organized by the Hunan International Business Vocational College (2017). He also participated in the course "Public Bids and Contracts by Generation Technology: Experience of Guatemala", sponsored by the CIER Regional Committee for Central America and the Caribbean (CECACIER), in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (2019).

Memberships and Teaching Positions

Member of the Dominican Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados de la República Dominicana).

Member of WIPO ADR Young (Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO).

He has extensive teaching experience at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), as a professor of "Introduction to the Study of Law" I and II, "Objective Law", "Subjective Law", "Law of Obligations II", "Alternative Dispute Resolution", "Arbitration", "Conciliation", "Negotiation", "Successions", "Legal Foundations of Tourism", "Legal Environment of Business" and "Online Reputation Management (ORM)". In addition, he has served as an invited professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM), for the subjects "Successions and Liberalities" and "Contract Law".

He lectured the module of "State Participation in the Electric Power Generation Sector and Implementation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)", as part of the "Diploma in Electric Power Law" sponsored by Gaceta Judicial in its 2020 edition. He also lectured at a diploma course on "Energy Law: Electricity, Renewable, and Fuels", organized by the National Association of Young Lawyers of the Dominican Republic (ANJA-RD) and the Punta Cana-Macao Energy Consortium (CEPM) on its 2021 edition.