Julián Parra Benítez

Mr. Parra is Director of the firm’s Public Law and Infrastructure and Public Utilities Practice Groups. Lawyer with 12 years of experience in legal matters related to public law and infrastructure projects. He graduated from Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, and he holds a Postgraduate Degree in Public Procurement and its Management and a Master's Degree in Administrative Law from the same University.  Mr. Parra completed with merit a Master of Science in Public Policy and Administration with specialization in Public Management from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

He has been actively involved in advising State-owned and mixed entities (having different procurement regimes) and in consulting agreements executed with the National Planning Department, the National Development Finance Agency, among other agencies. Similarly, Mr. Parra advised multinational companies in their participation and/or structuration of Public-Private Partnerships for the development of roads, mass transit systems and social infrastructure projects. Recently, he has advised multinational companies in several legal aspects related with toll road concessions (third, fourth and fifth generation of toll road concessions in Colombia), river concession projects, (Dique Channel and Magdalena River Projects), concessions for the provision and operation of busses in the context of mass transit systems (i.e. Transmilenio and MIO mass transit systems) and concessions for the provision of rail mass passenger transports systems in different cities of Colombia (i.e. Bogota’s First Metro Line project, Regiotram project and the 80th Avenue Tramway of Medellín).

Currently he is a postgraduate and masters’ professor of Public Procurement Law at the Law School of the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Julián has participated in several academic journals specialized in public management, public procurement and infrastructure projects, including, among others, the following: (i) Structural Impediments to Policy Learning: Lessons from Colombia’s Road Concession Programs (Carter B. Casady & Julián D. Parra, 2020. International Journal of Public Administration, DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2020.1724142. ISSN: 0190-0692), (ii) Denaturing of the exceptional clauses in public procurement (Parra, J., and Martínez, O., Infraestructura & Desarrollo, Cámara Colombiana de la Infraestructura. Magazine No. 58, May – June 2014. ISNN1794-3213) and (iii) The fait du prince and the unpredictability theory as causes that may affect the economic balance of state contracts (Parra, J., Law 1150, 2007. An answer to efficiency and transparency in public procurement. Colección de Textos de Jurisprudencia. University Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, 2011).