Team size: Over 100

LATAM countries your role covers: México, Colombia, Brasil, Perú, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay

What are the most significant cases and transactions in the LATAM region that you or your legal team have recently been involved in?

We continuously work in the region and, as such, we have been repeatedly recognised in the “League tables” as the number 1 bank in Latin America. Several of our operations have been awarded and recognised in recent years, operations such as the financing of line 6 of the Sao Paulo metro, Amanecer Solar CAP – the financing of the largest photovoltaic plant in Latin America -, the Rio Magdalena operation or the Rumichaca highway, in Colombia, have all been recognised and awarded as the best operations in LATAM, in recent years, and in all of them Santander has played a key role. But we do not only carry out public operations, since, on a daily basis, we facilitate capital markets operations such as interest rate or exchange rate derivatives that are vital for the development of local capital markets and that help the progress of companies and countries in which we operate.

What are your organisations plans in the LATAM region over the next 12 months and how will your legal expertise help to achieve these plans?

As the leading bank in the region, at Santander CIB our focus is continuous on the opportunities that Latin America offers, providing our global positioning and our local knowledge, which allows us to fulfill our mission of contributing to the progress of people and companies. in all the markets in which we are present.

At Santander, we continue to bet heavily on Latin America, where we see a broad path for our operations, in areas such as ESG, infrastructure financing or access to global capital markets for LATAM companies. I hope that our global experience and knowledge of local legal structures can help this purpose, through solid and internationally comparable legal structures.

How do you adapt your legal counselling to align with the diverse business practices and customs of various LATAM countries?

Although there is no doubt that throughout the region there is an increasingly greater influence of New York law and American law in general, as it has been confirmed recently even in bankruptcy matters, with several companies from different Ibero-American countries – and without special links with the US – adhering to the Chapter 11 process, at Santander we try at all times to seek the best solutions and legal structures for our clients in the region, relying on the experience and knowledge of local teams to achieve the best results.