국제 프로젝트 파이낸스 금융계약서상 채무불이행사유들과 그 효과

Abstract

Project finance is a form of non-recourse or limited-recourse financing which is typically funded through syndicated loans sourced from multiple lenders and is widely used to fund infrastructure, oil and gas, petrochemical, and natural resources projects. Finance documents set out the key commercial terms of a project finance transaction. The event of default clause is one of the most important clauses in a finance document which is heavily negotiated between the lenders and the borrower during documentation. This paper sets out to analyse the event of default clause and divides it into two categories: (i) general financing related circumstances and (ii) project financing related circumstances. This paper also examines the lenders’ right to stop disbursements, cancel commitments, accelerate the loan and enforce security where an event of default occurs. Lenders will often have security over all of the assets and contractual rights of the project. As such, lenders will have the option of selling the assets of the project company or the shares in the project company (whilst continuing the operation of the project through step-in rights). It is generally believed the latter approach will maximize value of the sale. Following from this paper, it is expected that more detailed and regular research will be conducted on event of default clauses in finance documents for project finance transactions. It is further expected that the findings from such research will be utilized widely in practice.