About

Number of years practice:

24

Principal practice areas:

Global Infrastructure Projects; Energy and Natural Resources; Mergers and Acquisitions

Bar admissions:

Washington DC

Languages spoken:

English, Spanish

Álvaro José Mestre is a partner and serves as Chair of the firm’s Mexico Country Desk. While primarily resident in the Washington DC office, Mestre resides and works several months out of each year in Mexico. He represents a mix of developers, owner/sponsors, investors, manufacturers, contractors and other interested parties in the corporate structuring and overall development, construction, management, ownership, operation and maintenance of global infrastructure projects. He has particular sector expertise in the energy and transportation industries, and a practice-long regional focus on Latin America with specific country expertise in Mexico.

For more than two decades, he has represented clients in diverse forms of cross-border transactions involving various renewable and conventional power generating technologies, including solar, wind, natural gas, nuclear and biofuels. Additionally, he has extensive experience in developing fuel transportation projects and advising on hydrocarbons storage projects, including LNG terminals.

Mestre led the representation of various Pemex affiliates on the development of some of the most significant cross-border US-Mexico natural gas pipelines in recent history, including the Los Ramones Project (Project Finance International and IJGlobal Deals of the Year). In the transportation sector, he has been integrally involved in light-rail and toll-road PPP Projects throughout the Americas.

Alvaro is recognized as a Highly Regarded Lawyer in the International Financial Law Review’s Energy and Infrastructure, Project Development and Project Finance categories – United States; and is named a Top Latino Lawyer by Latino Leaders Magazine.

Key cases that Mestre has been engaged with in the past 12 months involve representing Infraestructura Energética Nova (IEnova) on the engineering, procurement and construction of three key projects across the United States and Mexico. He has also represented the owner of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Terminal site in Mexico on the structuring, drafting and negotiating of arrangements governing terminal services.

What changes in the commercial and/or legal market do you anticipate in the 12 months ahead in Mexico?

I anticipate that large and established companies, as well as capitalised Mexican start-ups, will help fill a gap and will play a growing role in the development of much needed Mexican infrastructure. This is largely because foreign investors continue to face a great deal of political and regulatory uncertainty in Mexico. As foreign investors continue to monitor the evolution of López Obrador’s policies and consider his roll-back of liberalising reforms, they are delaying investment decisions on the basis of country risk. In turn, this is creating a vacuum that can lead to opportunity for those domestic developers that are committed to the market because they are inherently better able to assess and manoeuvre the volatility of the current administration’s policy changes.

What is your perception of in-house counsel’s priorities in terms of client service when working with US-based law firms?

In-house counsel have a host of resources at their disposal. In today’s quickly evolving legal industry, US and global law firms consistently compete with well-staffed, in-house legal departments as well as increasingly sophisticated and experienced local and regional law firms. As a result, I perceive in-house counsel will look to both US and global law firms, like ours, to provide a unique market perspective that draws on the knowledge accumulated through the regular deal making that is performed across our global footprint. More specifically, in my experience in-house counsel expect a firm such as ours to identify creative solutions that draw from our international practice, and at the same time adapt such solutions for use in a local market such as Mexico.