About

Constituted by public deed in February 2013 and part of MetLife, the leading global insurance and pension plan provider, AFP ProVida is a company focused on satisfying the real needs of its affiliates whilst constantly strengthening Chile’s pension market as recognised by the financial industry. Despite returning to the financial services industry after almost 11 years in the energy sector, chief of legal Antonio Valdés Vicuña has transitioned seamlessly back into the sector since joining the company in March 2018. Demonstrating the headway he has already made at the firm in little over a year, Valdés has worked on key matters including major toll-road projects and a litigation with industry regulators, Superintendencia de Pensiones. When guiding his legal team on matters such as this, his ethos for AFP ProVida’s legal team is clear and unequivocal: ‘[To be] very rigorous in the legal analysis of matters, subjects or issues’. As a result of his longstanding in-house career, he is extremely adept at handling a variety of legal issues from complex litigations, such as obtaining environmental approval for large hydropower projects, power purchase agreements (PPA), EPC construction contracts and finance agreements to overseeing day-to-day matters such as termination letters, lease agreements and labour matters amongst others. Whilst working in the energy sector, Valdés played a key role on a range of transactions including power plant developments, the operation of the LNG floating storage unit for the LNG terminal in Mejillones and the proposed acquisition of GasAtacama by Origin Energy. An international lawyer, Valdés has ‘fond memories of a particularly difficult negotiation’ in China for Engie, where he was senior legal counsel between 2007 and 2012, and considers his brief spells of working in the UK and the US, for HSBC and Shearman & Sterling respectively, as highly valuable experiences. Valdés is also commended for giving back to Chile’s legal community in his spare time, having been a professor of commercial law at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile since 2011.