Martin C. Stewart-Smith

Partner

Martin C. Stewart-Smith is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Energy Transactions Practice. Martin is a transactional lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in a wide range of energy projects, ranging from upstream oil and gas developments to LNG project financings and downstream gas commercialisation. He has worked on private-to-private merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in the oil and gas, renewables, and energy services sector. Martin has also advised host governments and corporate clients on privatization transactions in the energy sector, including sector law reform, independent power producers (IPPs), and electricity transmission and distribution projects.

Martin has acted for developers, sponsors, and lenders on a wide variety of power and gas projects in various jurisdictions around the world, including in the United States, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and the UK. He has also advised a number of governments on institutional, legal, and regulatory reform in the process of market liberalization.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Martin was a senior energy lawyer and a partner in the Projects Development & Finance Group in the London office of an international law firm. Earlier in his career, he spent two years on secondment to the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C.

Martin was born and raised in Zimbabwe and has worked on several energy projects throughout Africa, including in Algeria, Angola, Côte d'Ivoire,  Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and Zambia.

Martin earned his Dip LP from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1985 and his LLB, with honors, from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1984. He also studied oil and gas law at the Centre for Petroleum & Mineral Law Studies at the University of Dundee, Scotland. Martin is fluent in German.