Law Offices of

Jeremy D. Weinstein, Esq.

1512 Bonanza Street (The Old Fire Station), Walnut Creek, CA 94596 Telephone: (925) 943-2708; Telefacsimile: (925) 943-3105

Jeremy Weinstein has broad and deep expertise in corporate and commercial finance, energy trading and project development, renewable resources, secured lending, securities, financial and commodity derivatives, workouts, bankruptcy and investment fund management. He has negotiated and documented over 450 significant debt, equity and derivative transactions representing billions of dollars, more than 175 energy derivative and commodity trading enabling agreements, numerous physical and financial transactions covering millions of megawatt-hours in energy and fuels, and over a hundred corporate restructurings and workouts. Several of these transactions have been featured in international periodicals, including two on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal. Most involve energy risk management or the financing of high technology startup companies. Before opening his own firm in 1991, he was the general counsel for a leading diversified utility's venture capital/leasing unit, and before that was with a major California law firm where he represented California's largest banks in asset-based transactions, including international corporate loans and leveraged buyouts.

Jeremy Weinstein was awarded the 2007 Distinguished Service in Environmental Markets Award by the Environmental Markets Association. He is prominent in the most exciting, developing areas of environmental finance, advising major industrial companies on emissions trading and mitigation strategies relating to climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, California Renewable Portfolio Standard requirements, and negotiating and documenting significant weather derivative transactions. He is the Environmental Markets Association (EMA) co-chair of the joint ABA/EMA/ACORE working group that published a standard form of master renewable energy certificates trading contract. He is active with Canopy Botanicals, a Bolivian sustainable development company established to help fund the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project, a rainforest preservation joint venture of The Nature Conservancy, American Electric Power, PacifiCorp, and BP, and also worked on the Rio Bravo Carbon Sequestration Pilot Project, a rain forest preservation project in Belize funded by American utilities and others.

Jeremy Weinstein has addressed national conferences on topics in energy trading, weather derivatives, renewable energy certificates (also known as "green tags"), emissions trading, and venture debt. Several transactions on which he has worked have been the subject of media coverage. He has briefed and argued important appellate decisions, including the winning side of the landmark bankruptcy preference case In re Loretto Winery, 107 B.R. 707, 89 C.D.O.S. 26 (9th Cir. BAP), which was finally overruled by Act of Congress in 2005. Using his proficiency in the mathematics underlying finance and derivative transactions, he has developed techniques of forensic financial statistical analysis that successfully detected unreported derivatives activity and corporate fraud.

He has written extensively on important emerging issues in energy trading, derivatives and environmental finance, as well as on the role of morality in law, including:
"Practical Considerations When Trading Electricity on Standardized Industry Forms," chapter in Kramer and Fusaro, Energy and Environmental Trading: US Law and Taxation (2008);
"Contract Force Majeure under New York Law," chapter in Kramer and Fusaro, Energy and Environmental Trading: US Law and Taxation (2008);
"The New ABA/EMA/ACORE Master Renewable Energy Certificate Trading Agreement," chapter in Kramer and Fusaro, Energy and Environmental Trading: US Law and Taxation (2008);
"Energy Trading with Hedge Funds," Kramer and Fusaro, Energy and Environmental Trading: US Law and Taxation (2008);
"New Master Renewable Energy Certificate Trading Agreement," American Bar Association Energy Committees Newsletter, May 2007;
"On the Path to Renewable Energy Certificates Derivatives," Futures & Derivatives Law Report, Apr. 2007;
Introduction and Guidance Notes, ABA/EMA/ACORE Master Renewable Energy Certificate Purchase and Sale Agreement, Feb. 2007 (with other credited working group members);
"Energy Trading Contracting with Hedge Funds," Proceedings of the Institute on Oil and Gas Law, Feb. 2007;
"Applied Game Theory in the United Airlines Bankruptcy Case," Wilmott's Quantitative Finance Journal, Nov. 2006;
"Contracting for a Unified Renewable Energy Certificates Market," Environmental Finance, Nov. 2006;
"Practical Considerations Regarding Electricity and its Regulation When Using the ISDA/EEI Power Annex," Futures & Derivatives Law Report, Jul./Aug. 2006;
"Standardizing Renewable Energy Certificates Contracting," Environmental Finance, May 2005 (with Dan Chartier);
"Escape from the Island of the One-Way Termination: Expectations and Enron v. TXU," Futures & Derivatives Law Report, Nov. 2004 (with Bruce MacIntyre & Fritz Henze);
"A Western Renewables Marketplace," Environmental Finance, Apr. 2004;
"Master Netting Agreement Developments in the Energy Industry," Futures & Derivatives Law Report, May 2003 (cited in Euromoney's Documentation for Derivatives, and in the Journal of Futures Markets);
"Examining Enron's SO₂ Emission Trades," Environmental Finance, Mar. 2003;
"Using the Emissions Marketing Association Master Agreement," The Emissions Trader, Mar. 2003;
"What's Missing from Andrew Fastow's Indictment?" Energy & Power Risk Management, Jan. 2003 (published as "Fastow Under Investigation");
"Rethinking the Silicon Valley Cargo Cult," Wilmott's Quantitative Finance Journal, Jan. 2002;
"Carbon-Denominated Weather Swaps," Environmental Finance, Nov. 2001;
"Weather Derivatives for Environmental Risk Management," Energy & Power Risk Management, Sep. 2001;
"Inside California's Power Crisis," Energy & Power Risk Management, Mar. 2001;
"Emissions Trading: The Market as Mystic," Energy & Power Risk Management, Nov. 2000;
"Innovative Financing and Forest Conservation," Environmental Finance, Jun. 2000;
"Valuing Private Equity Warrants on Initial Issuance," Valuation Strategies, Sep./Oct. 1999 and Derivatives Report, Oct. 1999 (cited by Shannon Pratt in his core textbook, "Valuing a Business: The Analysis and Appraisal of Closely Held Companies," 4th ed.);
"No Milk and Honey in Land of Worker Bees," Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 1990;
"Adultery, Law, and the State: A History," 38 Hastings Law Journal 195 (Nov. 1986) (cited by Judge Posner; in Senate Hearings on a marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution (2005); the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (2002); and by several prestigious law reviews); and
"Morals and the Criminal Law," PV-P, The Cambridge Student Philosophy Journal, Apr. 1983.

Jeremy Weinstein is a founder of the Contra Costa County Jewish Day School and serves on its Board of Trustees. He was also a founder of the Corporate Counsel and Business Attorneys Section of the Contra Costa Bar Association in 1990.

He earned his J.D. in 1987 at the University of California, where he was Executive Editor of The Hastings Law Journal, his Bachelor's degree in 1982 at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and graduated, in three years, summa cum laude; and both a B.A. and M.A., with honors, reading law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, England, in 1984, where he was Secretary of the Trinity Hall Law Society.

Representative Clients

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