Countries in Latam your company operates in: Development of estate projects in CEE and LATAM region.

What are the most significant cases or transactions in the Latam region that you or your legal team has recently been involved in?

Recently I have been involved in setting up of our corporate structure in LATAM and coordinated several acquisition processes of estate properties to develop our projects having the development value of approximately US$55m. As these acquisitions were the first acquisitions UDI ever made in LATAM, during pandemic restrictions, we had to proceed cautiously and deliberately. Simultaneously, we needed to quickly acquaint ourselves with local regulations and way of doing business, to successfully complete the acquisitions. Given these circumstances the whole process was challenging and time demanding.

The unusual business environment created by the pandemic has been swiftly followed by the Ukraine crisis, attendant supply chain costs rising and inflation. Are you now putting more emphasis on preparing for the unforeseen and, if so, what does this entail?

Yes, we pay more attention to vis major, suspension and termination clauses than in the past. In these extremely volatile days, we must make sure that we retain the rights to suspend or terminate the projects fast. We focus on negotiating explicit terms with our general construction supplier that a pandemic does not constitute a vis major, and the general construction supplier must thus continue to perform its works regardless of a pandemic spread among its employees and partners. On the other side, general suppliers are more reluctant to agree on fixed prices for their works, as they can hardly predict pricing of construction materials, equipment, and utilities in the coming years or even months. They can guarantee the fixed prices for a coming short period of time only. Accordingly, to keep the business going, in some cases we use contractual clauses which allow the parties to vary pricing to reflect market ups and downs.

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?

There is a lot of work to do. Our group would like to continue developing residential projects in Panama City and San Jose, completing designs with architects, applying for construction permits and hiring general construction supplier and project manager. We also aim finance our projects by banks to have additional financial sources. If the development process is fast, we aim even to start selling residential units. I will be covering the legal and corporate side of these projects.

Simultaneously, we are actively looking for new potential projects in Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia with the aim of extending our presence in the region. Depending on the future status of the market, we would like to co-operate with foreign investors and estate investment groups.