About

General counsel at Total Austral, the French hydrocarbons giant’s Argentine subsidiary, Arturo Pera directs a nine-strong legal team comprising four lawyers and five contracts specialists. His tenure in the post has coincided with a highly-changeable business environment in Argentina, as a result of which he has had to lead on a wide variety of matters including contract renegotiation (& extension) with both national and provincial government administrations. Notable recent achievements, however, have been in the contentious area. In July 2013 Pera oversaw the successful conclusion of a four year case against the US ‘vulture’ fund NML, that rose all the way to the French Court of Cassation, and which related to the fund’s attachment of $70m of Total’s local assets to its claim against the Argentine state (which in turn relates to defaulted sovereign debt). In November, he led the successful conclusion of a ten year ICSID arbitration against the Argentine state with an award reported by Clarín as being in the region of $300m.