Skip to content

Paolo Pinna

Partner

Paris
Direct Dial
+33 01 44 94 31 50
+33 06 27 61 50 73
Contact by email
Download vCard

About Paolo

Paolo is a banking and finance lawyer based in Paris. He specialises in shipping and export finance, project finance, restructuring, and acquisition finance.

Paolo regularly assists banks, financial institutions, export credit agencies and corporate borrowers in a wide range of complex domestic and cross-border banking and finance transactions, including the negotiation and drafting of a wide range of contracts. He is highly regarded for his expertise in complex multi-jurisdictional financial transactions, and he has developed an in-depth experience in the context of sovereign debt financing, where he has acted for lenders with respect to the financing of export credit supported financings in Africa, western and eastern Europe, and South America.

Paolo graduated in 2005 from Rome’s L.U.I.S.S. Guido Carli – Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali and he has been a member of the Rome Bar since 2008. In 2011 Paolo received a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Banking, Corporate and Finance at Fordham University School of Law, New York, where he was also a member of the Journal of Corporate and Financial Law. In November 2016, Paolo was admitted as a Solicitor in England & Wales and in May 2019, Paolo was admitted to the Paris Bar.

He is a native Italian speaker and he fluent in French and English.

Paolo has gained significant experience in:

  • shipping and export finance transactions;
  • complex domestic and international financings;
  • sovereign debt financings;
  • supplier and buyer credit facilities;
  • pre and post-delivery financings;
  • bilateral, club and syndicated international secured and unsecured loans;
  • revolving credit facilities;
  • issuance of bonds;
  • “new money” deals and financing restructurings;
  • the granting and enforcement of securities.

What the market says about Paolo

Paolo is ranked as a “Rising Star” in Shipping Finance by legal publication The Legal 500 EMEA 2024.

Clients appreciate and recognise Paolo’s efficiency, pragmatism and reliability and they describe him as “an efficient and proactive lawyer who always finds legal solutions based on sound commercial reasoning” (Legal 500, 2023), a “rare excellent professional, very responsive and very available” and they further say “Paolo has shown great mastery, diplomacy and experience in the context of a complex and sometimes intense negotiation.  He was undoubtedly an asset by also showing creativity and listening to bring the parties to balanced and satisfactory compromises” (Legal 500, 2020).

Experiences

Paolo has acquired an in-depth experience in the field of export credit financing and worked at SACE S.p.A., as senior legal counsel in the legal affairs department, for almost two years.

In 2023 he was seconded in the legal department of BNP Paris, Paris which revealed to be an extremely prolific opportunity to further concentrate on shipping and export credit transactions and appreciate the current trends and issues from a client’s perspective.