Mark Burch

Bar Membership:

• Washington, DC
• Florida

Education:

• Finance Degree (1990), University of Florida Warrington College of Business
• Juris Doctorate Law Degree (1993), University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he was Editor of the Florida Journal of International Law
• Rijksuniversiteit Leiden Faculty of Law, the Netherlands (1993)
• LL.M. Degree in European Union Law (1994), Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Areas of Expertise:

• International joint venture and partnership transactions
• Cross-border mergers and acquisitions
• Private equity, venture capital, and project finance
• Loans (syndicated, secured, mezzanine), credit facilities, bond issues, and financial restructurings
• Real estate acquisitions, sales, and construction
• Franchise, distribution, and licensing
• Securities, initial and secondary public offerings
• Management and employment contracts
• International tax
• General cross-border litigation and arbitration

Languages:

• English, Spanish, French, German

Achievements: 

• Mr. Burch has practiced law in both law firms and corporations in the United States and Europe.  He began his European legal career in the Brussels office of the British law firm SJ Berwin & Co, focusing on a wide variety of EU issues for US and European-based companies, including antitrust and insurance law matters. Subsequently, for nearly 15 years Mr. Burch served as in house counsel and later General Counsel and Managing Director for the Eastbridge Group, a private equity firm consisting of over 50 subsidiaries and 7,500 employees operating primarily in the emerging market economies of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Ukraine, and also in Western Europe and the United States

• As part of the company’s senior management team, Mr. Burch lead the company through all major transactions, coordinating and often directly negotiating the acquisition, sale, financing, and refinancing of companies and assets throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the United States, ranging in size from USD 5 million to over USD 1 billion, including the first back-door listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the first securitized bond issue in Poland, and one of the first companies to secure special government financing to rebuild lower Manhattan after 9/11 

• In addition to overseeing the group’s senior management and contributing to the company’s strategic development and expansion, Mr. Burch lead Eastbridge’s 10+ member in-house legal team, responsible for drafting and negotiating partnership, joint venture, shareholder, loan, bond, and various other corporate agreements across European and US legal jurisdictions

• Mr. Burch currently serves as a Supervisory Board member of the Warsaw Stock Exchange listed company EMPiK Media & Fashion, the leading operator of consumer brands in the CEE region 

• After living over 16 years in Europe, Mr. Burch has recently relocated to the Washington, DC area