Cuatrecasas

Chairman: Rafael Fontana

Managing Partner: Javier Fontcuberta

Number of partners: 275

Number of lawyers: 1,300

Languages: Spanish, English, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian

Latin America Offices: Bogota,Lima, Mexico City, Santiago

International Offices: Spain (Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Girona, Madrid, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastián, Seville, Valencia, Vigo, Vitoria, Zaragoza), Portugal (Lisbon, Porto), Belgium (Brussels), United Kingdom (London), China (Beijing, Shanghai), USA (New York), Angola (Luanda*), Morocco (Casablanca*)

*in association with the respective local law firm

Firm Overview:

Cuatrecasas is a well-established international law firm in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Through a highly specialized legal teams with extensive knowledge and experience, it advises on all areas of business law, offering a sectoral approach and focus on all types of business.

With a team of around 250 professionals in Latin America, Cuatrecasas offers comprehensive legal advice from its offices in Bogotá, Mexico City, Lima and Santiago. In addition to full advisory services in each country, the teams provide the coverage needed for all interregional and crossborder transactions and for matters that require efficient coordination in several jurisdictions, while upholding quality standards at all times.

The New York office acts as a bridge to Latin America and maintains a close relationship with local teams. This ensures global coverage in North America and Latin America, enabling it to play a key role in advising international investors in the region.

Main Areas of Practice:

• Finance: The team offers legal advice on structuring and implementing all types of financing transactions, whether structured, fixed income or securitization transactions. With experts who have specialized knowledge and experience in domestic and international financial transactions, Cuatrecasas advises sponsors and banks on structuring financing transactions for national and international projects.
• Corporate & M&A: Cuatrecasas advises on all kinds of transactions: M&A, asset and business transfers, joint ventures, distressed M&A, commercial agreements, licensing, and corporate restructuring, including due diligence procedures, and drafting and negotiating contracts. They have a team specialized in private equity and venture capital investment. The transactional capacity in Latin America stands out for the way service combines the resources of a global firm with proximity and local specialty.
• Litigation & arbitration: CCuatrecasas represents clients in and out of court, providing personalized and specialized advice on administrative, civil, constitutional and commercial matters. Their experience and knowledge of local and international courts ensure the most efficient and successful approach to each case. They represent national and international clients during the pre-litigation phase and in arbitration proceedings, handling complex disputes in different sectors requiring specialized legal advice and in-depth knowledge of arbitration.
• Tax: The tax team is recognized in the market for its outstanding service in terms of sophistication, specialty and experience in all areas of tax consultancy. The team plays a key role in providing legal advice on strategic and everyday issues. They have extensive knowledge of the most efficient international tax structures.
• Energy: With a specialized team in all energy sectors, including renewables, electricity, oil, gas and mining,they provide a comprehensive service that includes advising on matters such as administrative and regulatory, M&A, corporate contracts, project financing and litigation proceedings.
• Infrastructure: The infrastructure team includes top lawyers with outstanding careers and extensive experience in public-infrastructure projects under concession contracts and other forms of public-private collaboration, and they act regularly for lenders, public administrations and promoters in the country’s public-private partnerships (PPP) and advise on private finance initiatives.
• Regulatory/Public law: The team advises on the relations between public and private entities, and inter-administrative relations from an administrative law perspective. We advise public entities in relation to public services, and the organization and operation of public entities, including state-owned and municipal companies.
• Employment: The labor law team combines extensive experience in all specialties of labor law with a thorough understanding of clients’ businesses. They advise some of the largest and most important national and international companies on labor issues.

Clients and Experience:

Cuatrecasas has a solid track-record working with leading companies, advising them on their day-to-day activity and on major transactions and well-known litigation proceedings. Last year, the firm advised on some of the most relevant cases in the international market, including Costa Verde Aeronáutica on the reorganization plan for Latam Airlines Group (USD 8 billion); Banco Santander Chile as financial adviser of the Public Offer for the Acquisition of Enel Transmisión Chile shares, by virtue of which Grupo SAESA acquired the company (USD 1.4 billion) and Sacyr on selling Valoriza Servicios Medioambientales (€734 million). The firm continues representing our client in several international arbitrations (three ICSID cases at present) related to the project to build Line 2 of the Lima Metro.

Knowledge and innovation:

Cuatrecasas is committed to digital transformation and encourage collective knowledge to provide distinctive, high-value advice. The firm foments an innovation culture applied to the legal activity, which combines training, procedures and technological resources, to ensure greater efficiency.

It uses artificial intelligence apps and file-sharing platforms with clients and promote remote access and open workspaces. Cuatrecasas was the first firm to create a business startup accelerator in Europe and Latin America, Cuatrecasas Acelera, and set up an investment vehicle specialized in legaltech startups.

Responsible Business:

Cuatrecasas incorporates environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) criteria in the service provision and internal management. The firm includes integrity and transparency in its main values. EcoVadis awarded us the Gold Medal rating for 2022.

Cuatrecasas promotes flexible working, efficiency and a work-family balance. Its Pro Bono Program contributes to rule of law and to access to justice.

Market recognition:

Cuatrecasas is listed as one of the most popular international law firms in Latin America. We advise leading companies in the region, as shown in the annual study “Who Represents Latin America's Biggest Companies,” prepared by the Latin American Corporate Counsel Association (LACCA), with Cuatrecasas included in the six most frequently chosen international firms by these companies in 2022.

In 2022, Cuatrecasas was named the Environment and Sustainability: Outstanding Firm Winner at the Chambers Latin America Awards 2022.