Rodriguez & Mendoza

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In 2010 Rodríguez & Mendoza reached its 100th anniversary providing uninterrupted legal services to its clients. Today, Rodríguez & Mendoza starts its second century with 42 lawyers working full-time, being able to satisfy under one roof most of the legal needs of its corporate clientele, and we continue participating in the most relevant transactions that take place in Venezuela.

We place special emphasis on recruiting the best talents that come out of Venezuelan universities and encourage young lawyers, many of whom have also been employed with prestigious foreign law firms, to obtain domestic and foreign postgraduate degrees. Some of our partners and associates are professors in various Venezuelan universities. We have assembled specialised teams that provide services in most of the areas that corporations require.

Most of the attorneys are fluent in English and some in French and Italian, and we have two in-house Spanish-English certified public interpreters.

Rodríguez & Mendoza has very strong labour, tax, corporate, oil, gas & petrochemicals, project financing; banking and financial transactions, antitrust, mergers and acquisitions, corporate law, environmental law, administrative law, arbitration, mediation and litigation, and capital markets practices, among others.

We enjoy a very good position and reputation In the Venezuelan legal market, and have earned our place as one of the most efficient and reputable law firms in Venezuela. We have participated and continue to participate in the most relevant transactions that constantly take place in Venezuela, both in domestic transactions as well as in cross-border ones. We represent many Fortune 500 companies and financial institutions, and very large domestic banks and corporations. As a reference, please find below a sample of some of the most relevant transactions in which we have recently participated.

• In 2011 we counselled Toyota de Venezuela in the labour strike that stopped the production plant for several months; in 2011 we counselled CDB in a US$1.5 billion loan to PDVSA to finance its participation in a Brazilian oil refinery. Also in 2011 we counselled the Brazilian Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Eeconómico y Social – BNDES in connection with an export facility for Petroleos de Venezuela.
• In 2010 we counselled China Development Bank in the US$20 billion credit facility to Venezuelan Bandes, the largest credit transaction ever in Venezuela.
• We counselled TNK-BP In the 2010-2011 process of acquisition of the Venezuelan assets of BP, a billion-dollar transaction.
• In 2009, 2010 and 2011 we counselled Toyota Venezuela in the several labour disputes and general strikes that for months affected the company.
• In 2010 we counselled Banco Espiritu Santo and China Development Bank in a US$1.5 billion loan to Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
• We counselled several private investors in negotiations and claims with the Venezuelan government regarding expropriations.
• We counselled Orinoco Iron in several arbitration processes.
• In 2009 and 2010 we counselled Gazprom in mediation and arbitration procedures with Scorpion International.
• Currently we are participating in several extra heavy oil projects and several gas projects.
• Representing several Japanese corporations, we are currently advising on a large credit facility to Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
• In 2007 and 2008 we represented the bank lenders in the financing of the Hamaca and Cerro Negro extra heavy oil projects, in the repurchase of the debts by instrumentalities of the Venezuelan government as a consequence of the partial nationalisation of all of the extra heavy oil projects.
• In 2007 and 2008 Rodríguez & Mendoza represented the banks in the massive restructuring of the project financing of the Sincor Project as a consequence of its transformation into Petrocedeño, a majority-owned governmental company pursuant to the partial nationalisation of the extra heavy oil projects.
• In 2007 we counselled the bank lenders in the US$1 billion revolving loan facility granted to PDVSA, being this facility the first financing facility granted to PDVSA since 2002 as well as the first financing by PDVSA under the application of the then new Organic Law for the Financing Administration of the Public Sector. We also represented the banks in the renewal of such facility on 2008.
• We counselled JBIC and a syndicate of Japanese banks on the project financing of the Metanol de Oriente Expansion Project, which closed on February 2008.
• We represent a large multinational gas company in the current exploration efforts to develop two gas fields in offshore fields of Rafael Urdaneta, located in the western part of Venezuela.
• We are currently representing the Spanish corporation Leche Pascal in its investment, in association with Alimentos Polar, in a milk plant and dairy products in Venezuela.

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