Jirapat Thammavaranucupt, a co-founder of Thai law firm TTT+Partners, has established his own firm, Jirapat and Partner, after two years of leading the projects and infrastructure, banking and finance as well as government affairs practices.
Speaking to Asia Business Law Journal, Thammavaranucupt said he had set out to seize work from a new Thai market focused on large infrastructure development and public accessibility to it.
Thammavaranucupt pointed to a lot of push to a new wave of projects, fostering foreign and domestic investment. These include data centres, entertainment complexes and the Landbridge project – a USD29 billion infrastructure project connecting deep-sea ports on the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand via an 87-kilometre highway and railway.
Such project development, Thammavaranucupt added, was obviously where their expertise would come into play.
“We take care of the client from the compliance and corporate point of view when they start a business, from the M&A joint venture and the bidding preparation and submission point of view at the project’s inception, from the project agreement and project financing point of view during the project’s development, and ultimately until the project company’s IPO,” he said.
The nature of such projects also matches what Thammavaranucupt specialises in, including infrastructure, energy, public-private partnerships, public procurement, banking and finance. Before focusing on project development and finance, he had worked in capital markets and M&A in his early to mid-career period.
Thammavaranucupt began his legal career as an associate at Thai law firm LS Horizon in 2009 before joining Baker McKenzie Thailand in 2010, where he spent close to four years as an associate. Less than eight years after leaving Baker McKenzie for Weerawong, Chinnavat and Partners, Thammavaranucupt made partner in 2021 during his 10-year stint at the Thai firm.
Over the years, he has taken part in advising on a series of large-scale projects and transactions in Thailand, including the THB3 billion U-Tapao International Airport and the THB224 billion high-speed train connecting three airports. He has also been involved in the drafting of the Public-Private Partnership Act 2019 and its amendment assessment this year.
In 2023, Thammavaranucupt co-founded TTT+Partners along with senior partners Veeranuch Thammavaranucupt and Pathorn Towongchuen. Like Jirapat, Veeranuch and Towongchuen had practised as a partner at Weerawong before co-founding TTT+Partners.
With himself as the only partner, and two special counsels for tax and energy laws plus 18 associates, Jirapat told Asia Business Law Journal that his firm would be a full-service outfit rather than specialist one.
Jirapat and Partner’s core practice areas include infrastructure and public-private partnerships, government and regulatory, energy and natural resources, capital markets, finance, corporate and M&A.
He said that while multinational corporations would often appoint a global law firm, Thai clients tended to look for specific needs to engage counsel and would branch out for other services.
“For example, a client may come in for project work, but they will stay if we can offer a seamless experience for all their legal work afterwards,” adding that he was seeing more and more Thai boutique firms “holding their own” against large international law firm chains.
“It definitely is an exciting time to be in the market.”
