Team Size: 157

LATAM countries your role covers: Mexico and Brasil

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

The main LATAM-related transaction this year was signed in June 2023 and affects our subsidiary in Mexico. Iberdrola Mexico and Mexico Infrastructure Partners (MIP) signed a binding agreement whereby the trust led and managed by MIP acquires 55% of Iberdrola’s EBITDA in the country, including associated contracts and more than 410 related jobs. Iberdrola will maintain 13 plants, all its activity with private customers and its portfolio of renewable projects to continue increasing its wind and solar assets in the country in the coming years.

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?

At Iberdrola, we work with the purpose of building a healthy and accessible electric energy model, based on the well-being of people and the preservation of the planet. The global crisis that arose in 2022 reaffirms our long-term vision and confirms the need for strong investment to end dependence on fossil fuels, which will still cover 75% of energy demand as of 2022.

Iberdrola is recognised as a “first mover and doer” by being one of the first companies to present a comprehensive and actionable Climate Transition Plan detailing its roadmap and actions to combat climate change. The Climate Transition Plan sets out the detailed actions and mechanisms that Iberdrola will implement to achieve its environmental goals and ensure that its activity contributes to the decarbonisation of the economy as a whole.

The Climate Transition Plan is backed by an ambitious investment plan that commits 47 billion euros until 2025 to promote the energy transition, with more than 27 billion euros allocated for networks and investments and 17 billion euros in renewables, to deliver 52,000 MW of renewable installed capacity by the end of the period (up from ~40,000 MW in 2022), while increasing storage capacity to over 100 GWh.

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

In a shifting global context, where the energy transition and decarbonisation of the economy is not a challenge for the future, but the challenge of our future, coupled with increased accounting, reporting and disclosure requirements for clients in all sectors, lawyers are required to be at the forefront of sustainability and ESG integration.

Our lawyers have the ability to craft sustainable and workable legal solutions to difficult legal issues, combining the best ideas and reaching a compromise on any differences. Our lawyers advise their in-house clients on how the long term and the long view are the key to corporate sustainability. They uphold the highest professional and ethical standards applicable to them and, in particular, the duties they owe not only to their clients, but to all stakeholders.

Overall, they understand global problems, work as a team, and have the ability to apply local solutions.