DLA Piper

CEK is a leading law firm based in Buenos Aires with offices in New York and Mendoza and it has one of the most qualified teams to provide high quality legal advice to foreign investors in Argentina and Latin America. CEK’s advice includes foreign investments, mergers and acquisitions, complex arbitration and litigation, financial and banking transactions, energy and natural resources, capital markets, intellectual property, antitrust, agribusiness and real-estate.  Additionally, we provide legal advice to clients in connection with insolvencies and creditors’ rights, privatizations, administrative law and regulatory matters, entertainment, taxation, labor, product liability and civil law.

Over the last three decades CEK’s partners played a leading role on several of the most notable transactions taking place in Argentina as well as in some of the more complex litigation and international arbitration cases involving Argentine companies.

During the 1990’s CEK’s partners worked on several privatizations of Argentina’s key public companies including YPF, MetroGAS, Telecom, Telefónica, Hidroeléctrica Futaleufú and Aguas Argentinas. Among the multiple bond offerings and acquisitions in which CEK was involved, CEK acted as counsel to Salomon Brothers and the Province of Buenos Aires (PBA) in the creation of PBA’s US$3.2 billion MTN Program. PBA became the second largest Argentine international issuer of securities.  CEK worked on 30 international bond offerings as counsel to the multiple international underwriters involved.

A decade of involvement on bond offerings, was followed by a decade of debt restructurings. Again, CEK worked on most of the largest corporate and provincial debt restructurings including the two sovereign restructurings.  It acted as counsel to debtors, international and domestic banks, and investors.  CEK was counsel to UBS between 2002 and 2004 in connection with the US$80 billion debt restructuring of Argentina.  In 2008 CEK was appointed counsel to Barclays Capital, the global coordinator of Argentina’s US$18.3 billion reopening of the debt exchange which was successfully consummated in 2010.

CEK worked on Banco Macro’s IPO, the first IPO in Argentina in a decade. CEK also proposed new regulation on perpetual bond offerings for banks to the Central Bank.  The regulation was approved and CEK acted as counsel to Credit Suisse and UBS on Banco Macro’s perpetual bond offering, the first one ever made in Argentina.  CEK also acted as counsel to PBA on its US$500 million international bond offering, the largest international bond offering made in Argentina after the crisis.  CEK acted as capital markets counsel in transactions for most Argentine provinces, including the Provinces of Buenos Aires, Chaco, Chubut, Formosa, Entre Ríos, La Rioja, Mendoza, Neuquén, San Juan, Santa Fe and Salta.

CEK was appointed counsel to GP Investimentos, Temasek and Amber in the acquisition and takeover of 22 companies in 9 jurisdictions for Pride’s Latin American assets, including US$600 million structured finance. It was the most complex acquisition of the year in Latin America. CEK also worked on two attempts to acquire a controlling interest in YPF as counsel to Citigroup and one of the world’s largest oil conglomerates.  In 2008 CEK was appointed as counsel to AES Uruguayana and SULGAS in a dispute involving YPF and Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur.  AES obtained a favorable award on liability in 2013. This was the largest arbitration case against an Argentine company ever.

In the current decade, CEK continues to play a leading role on some of the most notable capital markets transactions, debt restructurings, mergers and acquisitions and dispute resolutions. Among several notable mergers and acquisitions, CEK acted as counsel to Telefónica de España on the sale of Atento.  Since 2013 CEK worked on more than 70 bond offerings.  CEK is probably the most active capital markets firm in Argentina today. CEK is also providing legal advice on capital markets and foreign investments to several of the largest hedge funds based in Boston, LA, London and New York.

On the dispute resolution front, CEK was appointed counsel to Methanex (the world largest producer of methanol) in an international arbitration in New York under New York law against one the world largest oil companies (the case is ongoing).  It also advises a hedge fund on a US$250 million litigation in New York and a business conglomerate with a corporate litigation case in Delaware.

CEK’s partners have authored more than 50 books on legal matters and multiple legal articles on law reviews in Argentina, the U.K. and the U.S., including three books published by the Max Planck Institute in Munich.  Some of its partners are law professors in Argentina and in the US.  Guillermo Cabanellas also serves as member of the Commercial Law Institute of the National Academy of Law and two partners are members of the American Law Institute.