Biography
Rickie Sonpal is co-chair of Robinson+Cole’s Business Section and a member of the firm’s Business Transactions Group. He has a broad-based corporate and transactional practice that encompasses mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures, debt and equity financing, and general corporate and commercial matters. His clients represent many industries, with a special emphasis on the food and beverage and renewable energy industries.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Rickie regularly represents corporate clients and strategic and financial investors in domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and carve-out transactions. He counsels both buyers and sellers in structuring transactions and in negotiating the terms of a transaction and related financing. Rickie routinely represents renewable energy developers and investors in the sale or acquisition of renewable energy projects throughout the United States and has handled the sale of several of the largest solar generation projects in Rhode Island.
Partnerships and Joint Ventures
Rickie helps clients with structuring, documenting, and implementing a broad range of commercial partnerships and joint ventures. He has handled numerous joint ventures involving real estate and renewable energy development projects around the country, including assisting a client with a joint venture involving a large-scale Massachusetts-based residential, office, and retail development.
Debt and Equity Financing
Rickie frequently represents emerging, high-growth companies and entrepreneurs in capital raises and convertible debt financings. He also represents venture capital firms and other investors in connection with equity financings. Rickie represented 'I and Love and You,' a premium pet food and product company in Boulder, Colorado, in connection with multiple successful rounds of equity raises, including growth investments from venture capital and private equity firms.
He also assists borrowers and private lenders in connection with secured and unsecured debt financing transactions, many of which include bespoke terms or are otherwise highly transactional-specific.
General Corporate and Commercial Counseling
Rickie serves as outside general counsel to a number of businesses, advising on strategic and commercial matters. He regularly assists corporations with corporate governance matters, supply chain and other commercial contracts, employment and equity incentive agreements, and general corporate matters. Rickie routinely advises clients in the food and beverage industry on supply, co-manufacturing, distribution, logistics and other operational agreements.
Rickie previously practiced in the New York offices of Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP and Shearman & Sterling LLP. He served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Peter K. Leisure, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Rickie was an investigator of police misconduct with the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. He speaks fluent Swedish.