Law firm features - Opinion

Alfredo De Jesús O, deputy secretary general of the Venezuelan Arbitration Committee, reports on an unprecedented court decision on arbitration that puts Venezuela in line with international best practices.

In the US and the UK, existing client hours are falling by 15 per cent a year, while a recent study shows 53 per cent of corporate counsel fired one of their primary law firms in the last 12 months. A Brazilian report meanwhile shows 28 per cent of companies plan to reduce the number of firms they work with in the next year. In the face of such stark statistics it's time to institutionalise client relations programmes, argues Janet Stanton, a partner at Adam Smith, Esq, which provides strategic management consulting services to the legal industry

Carlos López López in San Juan and Emily Madoff in New York, partners of Wolf Popper LLP, consider the rising power of the Latin American consumer as class actions take hold in the region

China's trade with Latin America might make the bigger headlines, but that doesn't mean India's investment in the region should be overlooked, argues Sumeet Chugani of Diaz Reus & Targ, LLP

Levy & Salomão Advogados partner Ana Carolina Monguilod and associate Marcelo Vieira Rechtman look at the rules for Brazilian companies contracting foreign insurance.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP partner and Latin American group head Sergio Galvis and Samuel Woodall, legislative counsel and a former deputy staff director of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee at the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs of the US House of Representatives, discuss how the US response to the financial crisis could affect Latin America

As investors vie for a stake in building the infrastructure needed for Brazil's busy sports agenda, Sílvia Julio Bueno de Miranda and Daniel Aun, associates at LO Baptista Advogados Associados SC, argue that dispute boards might be a more efficent mechanism than arbitration to solve disputes in projects that need to get off the ground quickly

Jones Day partner Wade Angus reports from last week's conference on infrastructure investment in Mexico's transportation sector

Claudio Rodríguez-Galán, partner of energy, infrastructure and real estate firm Woodhouse Lorente Ludlow, SC and former general counsel at Iberdrola I&C for Latin America, charts the path and obstructions to investing in Mexico's renewable energy

Araújo e Policastro Advogados' José Paulo Bueno, Camila Araújo and Carolina Gora discuss the new restrictions on the acquisition of rural land by foreigners in Brazil

Haynes & Boone LLP associates Francisco Rivero, in Houston, and Antonio Salazar Escobar, in Mexico City, examine the potential dangers for members of the business community facing criminal accusations in Mexico

Estudio O'Farrell Abogados’ Nicolás Fernández Madero considers whether the relationship between the Argentine government and the private sector is growing stronger

Lawyers from Argentina’s Pérez Alati, Grondona, Benites, Arntsen & Martínez de Hoz (h) explain explain the implications of antidumping tariffs imposed on Brazilian and Chinese imports

Gibson Dunn LLP partners Lee Dunst and Philip Rocher, senior counsel Charles Falconer and associate Elizabeth Goergen gauge the broad reach of US and UK legislation that tackles fraud overseas Lee Dunst Philip Rocher

By Thomas Fox, an independent FCPA consultant; Luis Sotillo, partner of Uhy Hernández Mijares & Asociados - the Venezuelan arm of international consultancy UHY; and Christopher Lozier, the FCPA compliance head of UHY Advisors' Enterprise Risk Advisory Services