Klaus Dieter Borchardt

Dr. Klaus-Dieter Borchardt

Senior Energy Adviser
Baker McKenzie BV/SRL
Not admitted to practice law in this jurisdiction

Biography

Professor Doctor Klaus-Dieter Borchardt is a senior energy adviser with the European & Competition Law Practice Group in Baker McKenzie's Brussels office. He joined the Firm in 2020.

Klaus-Dieter worked for 33 years at the European Commission, including four years at the European Court of Justice. When he left the European Commission, he was deputy director-general for energy.

Klaus-Dieter is also an expert in EU law, having spent 12 years in the Commissions' Legal Service where he was responsible for state aid, internal markets and agriculture.

He has been a teaching professor at Bavarian Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg, Germany since 2001. He is also a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) and an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). He is the author of a standard textbook on EU law and the co-editor of a commentary on the EU treaties.

Practice Focus

During his 33 years at the European Commission, Klaus-Dieter was instrumental in many major developments in EU law and EU energy law and policy. He played a key role in the evolution of the legal framework of the European state aid control, notably the establishment of private market investor tests. He was the central EU official in the recent reform of the European electricity market design as part of the "Clean Energy for all Europeans" package. He chaired the Connecting Europe Facility's evaluation committee and the European gas, electricity and infrastructure forums.

Representative Legal Matters

  • Executing a Governance scrutiny for an IT service company which intends to enlarge its business into new energy areas

  • Advised a global green energy company on key aspects of the emerging EU regulatory framework for renewable hydrogen and ammonia and the import schemes.

  • Advised a global investment company on the overarching energy and climate framework under the Green Deal, with a particular focus on renewable energy sources, ETS, hydrogen, CC(U)S and energy efficiency.

  • Advised multiple clients on the EU's recent energy price crisis, including identifying existing legal means to adapt to such high prices and contributing to the public debate on national and EU-level policy design to respond to the crisis.

  • Advised a multinational investor group on the analysis of the general electricity market framework, and the framework for renewable electricity subsidies and public support on an EU-wide level.

  • Advised a consortium of companies on the current and future European framework for underground hydrogen storage activities in Europe.

  • Assisted a multinational gas company with the competition aspect of the strategy for future investment in both hydrogen networks and hydrogen production activities.

  • Successfully assisted a large EU energy company in its application to obtain national funding for its new renewable hydrogen production project, using an innovative state-aid approach (involving the framework for Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI)).

  • Assisted a national energy company in the designation of a pumped-storage plant as a critical cross-border energy infrastructure at EU level to enable this project to receive EU funding.

  • Assisted a group of electricity power producers in examining the compatibility of the upcoming Greek electricity market reform with existing EU energy law.

  • Assisted one of Europe's biggest real estate companies in the development of a company strategy for the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Energy efficiency Directive.

  • Assisted in developing the design of and analysing the political and constitutional feasibility of implementing a national regulatory framework for hydrogen, particularly hydrogen infrastructure, pre-empting European legislation.

  • Assisted a large international oil and gas company in developing its legal and policy strategy with the aim of adapting to the EU's energy and climate agenda, including in particular its strategy in relation to the deployment of renewables and low-carbon hydrogen projects.

  • Assisted in the national process for the design and implementation of a subsidy scheme to compensate large industrial companies for indirect costs linked to the penetration of renewable electricity on the national grid.

Education

  • Free University of Berlin (Dr. jur.) (1985)
  • High Court of Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein (State Examination, Second Degree in Law) (1985)
  • University of Hamburg (State Examination, First Degree in Law) (1979)

Languages

  • English
  • French
  • German

The ABC of European Union Law, European documentary, 8th edition, Brussels 2023

Contributor, Infringement proceedings (Vertragsverletzungsverfahren) (P.I.1.), Dauses (editor), Handbook of EC Commercial Law (Handbuch des EG-Wirtschaftsrechts), Munich 2021

Contributor, Action for Damages (Schadensersatzklage) (P.I.4.), Dauses (editor), Handbook of EC Commercial Law (Handbuch des EG-Wirtschaftsrechts), Munich 2021

The Basic Legal Principles of the European Union (Die rechtlichen Grundlagen der Europäischen Union), Textbook on EU Law, UTB no. 1669, 7th edition, Vienna 2020

Interpretation and the Further Development of the Law by Judges (Auslegung und Rechtsfortbildung), Handbook for Legal Practice in Germany (Schulze/Zuleeg, Handbuch für die deutsche Rechtspraxis), Baden-Baden, 5th edition, 2020

Commentary on the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (editor, together with Prof C. O. Lenz), 6th edition, Cologne, Basel, Vienna, 2012

Commentary on Articles 174-178 TFEU (Economic and Social Cohesion) and Articles 251-2281 TFEU, Art. 19 TEU, (Court of Justice)