KBC Groupe NV

Board/Management Information • Mar 19, 2012

Practice Focus

• y Banking & Finance
• y Corporate Governance
• y Mergers & Acquisitions

Education

• y Northwestern University, J.D., 1982, notes and comments editor, Journal of International Law and Business
• y Northwestern University, B.A./M.A., 1978

Admissions

• y Czech Republic (Foreign Lawyer)
• y Illinois

Languages

• y English
• y Czech

Vladimira Papirnik

Partner, Prague T +420 221 662 292 val.papirnik@squiresanders.com Chicago T +1 312 782 2762

Vladimira Papirnik was born in Kolín, Czechoslovakia, and immigrated with her parents and siblings to the United States, where she became a lawyer. Val practiced law for 13 years in the major Chicago law firm of Hopkins & Sutter before coming to Prague. She was the Office Managing Partner of Squire Sanders Prague office for more than 15 years. Val now splits her time and practice between Prague and Chicago.

Vladimira Papirnik focuses her international business practice on banking, project finance and corporate law. Her corporate practice covers mergers and acquisitions as well as corporate governance issues.

Val is listed in the 2012 edition of The International Who's Who of Banking Lawyers. Since 2006 Val has been named among the most influential businesswomen in the Czech Republic in an annual ranking in Hospodářské Noviny. She is recommended by Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers and Practical Law Company's Which Lawyer? Yearbook as a leader in corporate/mergers and acquisitions, and banking and finance in the Czech Republic. PLC's Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook and Chambers Europe named her a leader in the field of M&A in the Czech Republic. Val was also named a practice area expert in European Legal Experts and listed by The Best Lawyers in the Czech Republic for banking and finance, corporate matters, and mergers and acquisitions.

Val has served as an Executive Committee member of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the International School of Prague and of the CMC School of Business. She has worked with the Václav Havel Presidential Library and has served on the Supervisory Board of the Nadační fond Sbírky moderního umění Národní galerie v Praze (Charitable Fund of the Modern Collection of the National Gallery in Prague).

Val has 30 years of experience representing financial institutions as well as borrowers in various financing transactions ranging from export finance to multicurrency revolving credit and term loan agreements and secured facilities. She also advises lenders on innovative project and real estate refinancings.

Val advises a Board member of a leading investment bank focused on European emerging markets on shareholder and management issues. She was the lead attorney on the team advising the Czech National Property Fund in connection with its successful €2.745 billion sale of the state's 51% interest in Český Telecom.