Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Firm Details: 

Managing Partner: Peter A. Furci

Number of lawyers worldwide: More than 900

International Offices: New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, Luxembourg, Paris, Frankfurt.

Firm Overview: 

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a premier law firm with market-leading practices, a global perspective and strong New York roots. Clients look to Debevoise to bring a distinctively high degree of quality, intensity and creativity to resolve legal challenges effectively and cost efficiently. The firm brings clear commercial judgment to every matter and draws on the strength of its culture and structure to deliver the best of the firm to every client through true collaboration.

The Debevoise Latin America practice combines broad transactional capabilities, top-tier litigation and arbitration skills and a savvy understanding of the region. The practice works with some of the most sophisticated and respected conglomerates, corporations, investors and families in Latin America, with relationships dating back as long as 50 years. The firm has a multilingual, multicultural team, with dual US– and English-law capabilities as well as civil law expertise. A significant number of Debevoise lawyers travel to the region regularly and are fluent in the laws, languages, market practices and corporate cultures of Latin America.

The Debevoise Latin America practice projects in the region global best practices and offers clients an extraordinary service in M&A, international dispute resolution, private equity and white collar, as well as industry experience in financial institutions, insurance, mining, energy and natural resources, infrastructure, consumer products and media & telecommunications.

Debevoise has built strong connections with top local law firms, bankers and business people over many years of working in the region and through the firm’s international associate program, which regularly brings the most promising individuals from leading regional law firms and clients to work at Debevoise on a rotating basis.

Main Areas of Practice:  

M&A: 

■ With a keen focus on designing commercially savvy and creative solutions for clients, the M&A group consistently leads complex transactions in a broad variety of sectors and geographies. Leveraging the firm’s expertise in white collar crime, Debevoise has developed a market-leading reputation as the go-to firm for identifying, evaluating and mitigating corruption risk in M&A transactions. Similarly, Debevoise’s stellar global arbitration team allows the M&A group to craft deals out of disputes and design settlement mechanisms tailored to the Latin American markets. The group has special strengths in several sectors including infrastructure, mining, consumer products, insurance, media and telecom, asset management and healthcare.

■ Clients include large Latin America-based conglomerates doing cross-border M&A and joint ventures, strategic investors making inbound investments, private equity firms (both Latin American and international) and family groups. The firm’s client base includes names such as: Ambev, Antofagasta, Brasil Warrant, BTG Pactual, Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração (CBMM), Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN), International Paper, Organizações Globo, Mitsui, Prudential Financial; and private equity firms and investors such as Brookfield, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Capital Group, The Carlyle Group, H.I.G. Capital and GP Investments.

International Arbitration: 

■ Debevoise is widely regarded as the premier firm for international disputes involving Latin America with an award-winning practice and an outstanding track record. Debevoise has been the only firm in the world to have been ranked in Band 1 for both international arbitration and public international law byChambers Global every year for the last eight years. It has received the Chambers Latin America Award for Excellence in International Arbitration three times — more often than any other firm — and was named ‘International Arbitration Firm of the Year’ by Benchmark Litigation United States in four of the past six years.

■ Debevoise has won some of the largest, most significant awards for its clients in Latin America. It has also helped clients achieve highly favorable settlements of high-stake disputes. Examples of three complex and groundbreaking matters include: Perenco Ecuador in securing an ICSID award against the Republic of Ecuador worth over US$390 million, the largest compensation any tribunal has awarded in connection with Ecuador’s Law 42; one of the largest-ever BIT awards — $1.4 billion, including interest — for its client, Occidental Petroleum, against the Republic of Ecuador, a win recognised as Global Arbitration Review (GAR)’s 'Most Important Published Decision' of 2012 and The American Lawyer’s 'Global Dispute of the Year, Investment Arbitration' of 2013; and representation of Holcim and its two wholly owned Dutch subsidiaries, Holderfin B.V. and Caricement B.V., in a dispute against Venezuela, arising from the expropriation of their local subsidiary by the Venezuelan government, leading to a $650 million settlement that has been fully paid; Abilio Diniz, the founder of one of Brazil’s leading retail businesses, in three ICC arbitrations governed by Brazilian law and seated in São Paulo against Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA in a shareholder dispute. The dispute ended with a widely reported settlement favorable to the firm's client that was awarded the Deal of the Year Award – Disputes by Latin Lawyer (2014).

Compliance & Investigations: 

■ Debevoise is recognised globally and regionally as a leader in corporate investigations and compliance. Across the Americas, Debevoise conducts internal investigations of potential wrongdoing and defends companies and executives in connection with prosecutorial inquiries and enforcement actions. Some engagements relate to high-profile matters in Latin America includingOperation Lava Jato, Zelotes, Carne Fraca and the FIFA corruption scandal. The firm also works with leading companies on assignments ranging from conducting compliance risk assessments and enhancing internal compliance programs to performing anti-corruption and anti-bribery due diligence in connection with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other transactions.

Private Equity Funds: 

■ The private equity funds practice is one of the largest in the world, whether measured by the number of funds, total committed capital or resources devoted to private equity fund formation.

■ The practice represents the full range of private equity firms, from first-time funds to independent boutiques, institutionally sponsored private equity businesses, and to multi-strategy alternative asset firms investing in the region.

■ The group has advised private equity firms and investors pursuing a variety of investment strategies, including buyout/growth capital, real estate and infrastructure, media and telecommunications, healthcare, energy and other sector funds. It recently represented, or currently represents, firms such as Brookfield, The Carlyle Group, Vinci Partners and Tishman Speyer, among others.

Infrastructure: 

■ The group has extensive experience in the infrastructure sector in Latin America, including privatisation transactions in several countries in the region. The group's sectors include transportation, energy, mining and natural resources, power generation, and communication. Members regularly work very closely with the international dispute resolution group both in the negotiation of new transactions to incorporate lessons learned and in the negotiation of restructuring of transactions or settlement of disputes in energy, construction or other infrastructure projects.

■ The firm has also played a leading role in the development of privatisation and P3 structures in Latin America, having been involved in most of the P3 projects in Chile and many others in Mexico and elsewhere in the region.