Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP

This content can only be accessed by Latin Lawyer subscribers

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has been advising clients on transactions and disputes in Latin America for over 150 years. Our Latin America team advises Latin American corporations and foreign investors in the region on a broad range of legal areas, including arbitration, project finance, asset finance, equity investment, mergers and acquisitions, demergers, privatisations, antitrust, competition and trade issues and private equity. We work with local law firms throughout the region to provide high-quality, coordinated advice based on extensive international experience and local knowledge.

By bringing together the resources of our Latin America teams in London, Madrid, New York, Paris and Washington DC, with the expertise in all our international offices, we have the strength to provide clients with an outstanding level of service on Latin America transactions and disputes.

Our attorneys share an understanding of Latin America’s legal systems and culture and speak Spanish and Portuguese

Our multinational group includes both common law and civil law lawyers (including lawyers qualified in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela) who combine advice on documentation drafted under a common law or civil law system with a full understanding of the Latin American legal framework. In foreign investment disputes, we can combine the arbitration expertise and resources of the world’s number one arbitration practice with the ability to conduct cases in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

We have significant product experience across Latin America

This year, our finance practice reinforced its reputation as the legal counsel of choice for groundbreaking Latin American projects, including acting on behalf of Abertis Infraestructuras and Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners II (GSIP2), the winning bidders in the privatisation of two toll roads in Puerto Rico, PR-22 and PR-5. This was the first brownfield project to reach financial close in the US since 2006. The practice has also advised on numerous financings throughout the region including in Peru, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Our representation of Ultrapar in Brazil in a landmark case and our advice on the Heineken and FEMSA’s share swap, which was named Latin Lawyer’s Deal of the Year, is evidence of the strength of our corporate practice. Our antitrust capabilities are also significant, as we have advised on US and European antitrust aspects of deals in the region.

Our award-winning Latin America arbitration practice has continued to grow, with our lawyers representing clients – mainly foreign investors – in virtually every country in Latin America, with a particular recent emphasis on the wave of expropriations and other adverse measures (such as increased taxation) imposed on foreign investments in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

We have the capability and resources to coordinate and execute even the largest and most complex matters involving multiple jurisdictions

For cross-border transactions and multijurisdictional disputes, we utilise our strong relationships with the leading local law firms in most Latin American countries and can bring together lawyers with specific Latin American experience and sector and product focus from across our network of offices to provide clients with an excellent level of service.

Co-heads of the Latin America practice

Nigel Blackaby, Partner, Arbitration, Washington DC and Melissa Raciti-Knapp, Partner, Finance, New York.

www.freshfields.com