About

In Latin America, Citi has held a leading position in the financial services industry since 1904, when it started operations in Panama. Citi has the largest footprint of any financial institution in Latin America, with franchises in 23 countries. Citi’s Latin American legal team, led by Samuel Libnic, general counsel for the region, provides legal and business advice to Citi’s senior management in those 23 countries and manage the country legal teams across the region. The team is composed of eight regional lawyers in Miami and New York as well as the country legal teams. The Latin America legal team is recognised throughout Citi as being part of the firm’s top talent, as they bring with them significant experience from reputable and well-respected law firms throughout Latin America, the US and Canada. In addition, the team is considered a leader in regional and local matters by law firms, regulators and by the in-house legal departments of other multinational corporations. In terms of some key deals the team has worked on, in September 2018 Citi completed the sale of Citibanamex’s asset management business to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. The transaction involved fixed income, equity, and multi-asset funds holding approximately US$34bn in investments and it was part of Citi’s emphasis on expanding access to best-in-class investment products. Through a long term distribution agreement entered into at the closing of the transaction, BlackRock and Citibanamex are now offering BlackRock investment products to Citibanamex’s 20 million banking clients through its network of 1,500 branches in Mexico. This transaction was the first of its kind in Mexico, and marked a shift in the asset management industry in Mexico and throughout the region. The team has also worked on the long-term insurance distribution agreement between Citibanamex and Chubb Mexico and the divestiture of Citi’s consumer businesses in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. The Latin America legal team is also revered for having experts in crisis management, having dealt with a number of issues such as banking crises, and is called upon to provide critical legal advice to businesses operating in countries with challenging political environments across Latin America. In this role, the legal team is focused on anticipating, assessing and preparing for key political developments which is accomplished by working closely with regulatory authorities and the industry. Through its handling of the most recent economic and social crises in Brazil and Venezuela, the Citi team has continued to effectively support its business and function partners even in highly uncharted waters. The regional team has been relied on by the bank’s senior management through the Lava Jato investigation to handle its impact on significant client relationships at the bank. The legal team has been working proactively to protect the bank’s business, as well as its reputation, in the context of Venezuela’s economic crisis. The team has recently successfully managed sensitive litigation matters in the region with key wins during. The Latin America legal team is at the forefront of regulatory and antitrust investigations in the region, successfully settling an antitrust matter in a major country in late 2017, and is rightly recognised in this list.