Latin America

Sidley has been active in Latin America for over 60 years. We represent major local and multinational companies, financial institutions, private equity and other investment funds, sovereign governments, and state-owned enterprises in a wide variety of engagements including corporate transactions; investigations, compliance, and government enforcement matters; arbitration; litigation, and restructuring throughout South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Our global team has an in-depth understanding of local requirements and a perspective that spans borders. We have a deep understanding the region, not only legally, but from an economic and cultural perspective as well. Many of our lawyers are fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese. We have developed strong working relationships with local counsel in all major Latin American jurisdictions. Our team has managed transactions, crisis situations, investigations, anticorruption and compliance matters, and disputes of all sizes across the region.

Our team members are strategically located in key hubs across our global office network, namely in Miami, Dallas, and New York (important financial centers for Latin America), in Houston, the gateway to cutting-edge developments in the energy sector, and in Washington, D.C., where regulatory and enforcement regimes impact and shape global policy and standards.

Recognitions

Chambers Latin America 2026 
Corporate Crime & Investigations (International Counsel) 
International Arbitration (International Counsel)

Legal 500 Latin America 2025
City Leaders: Houston
City Leaders: Miami
Compliance and Investigations
Corporate and M&A
International Arbitration
Projects and Energy

Latin Lawyer 250 2025 “highly recommended”
Arbitration
Corporate and M&A
Energy
Private Equity
Trade

• Represented Darling Ingredients in its agreement to buy the Brazilian company Gelnex for US$1.2 billion in cash. This is the biggest deal in Brazil’s consumer sector in 2023 to date, stitched together by Santander on the selling end and Morgan Stanley on the buying end.
• Represented SoftBank in several Brazilian matters, including Mercado, Latin America’s largest digital assets platform and first crypto unicorn.
• Represented Crescera Investimentos in multiple matters, including the formation of Crescera Growth Capital Fund V, L.P., a growth equity fund seeking commitments to invest in mid-market growth capital investments in Brazil.
• Represented United Airlines, Inc. in a joint business agreement involving Aerovías del Continente Americano S.A. (Avianca), Compañía Panameña de Aviación S.A. (Copa) and several Avianca and Copa affiliates.
• Represented China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Company Ltd. on its participation, through its Brazilian subsidiary, in the development and production of the Búzios field in the Santos Basin pre-salt of Brazil, the largest discovered deepwater field in the world. The transaction was named as “Project & Energy Deal of the Year” by China Law & Practice Awards 2022.

• Represented Stericycle, Inc., a global public company in the regulated and specialized waste material industry, in a high profile coordinated settlements reached in 2022 with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as Brazilian authorities — both the Comptroller General’s Office (CGU) and the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) — in which Stericycle agreed to pay approximately $90.2 million to resolve violations of anti-corruption laws in Latin America, including in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
• Represented international sports confederation, CONCACAF before the DOJ in remission proceedings, in which CONCACAF received approximately US$70 million in funds collected by DOJ in the FIFA prosecutions, out of a total of more than US$200 million awarded to CONCACAF and its fellow football organizations, FIFA and CONMEBOL. This involved more than twenty-five football-playing nations of North and Central America and the Caribbean, and was one of the most effective criminal prosecutions of extraterritorial criminal conduct in U.S. history.
• Representing a wellness boutique hotel owner in a multi-pronged engagement consisting of an internal investigation, crisis management counsel, government enforcement response, and litigation stemming from the death of two Americans at a hotel in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.
• Representing Vida Panamá, 29 Panamanian entities that have been sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC has designated the companies as specially designated narcotics traffickers, and added them to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Providing legal advice and counsel to facilitate operation of the businesses on an interim basis, as well as the measures necessary to satisfy OFAC and other U.S. government agencies that sanctions should be revoked or waived.

• Represented PERU LNG S.R.L. in several high-stakes natural gas arbitrations in front of the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration.
• Represented BCB Holdings and Belize Social Development Limited against the government of Belize before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court denied certiorari in Belize v. BCB Holdings Limited et al. and Belize v. Belize Social Development Limited after international arbitration awards against the government of Belize.
• Represented The Republic of Colombia in an investment treaty arbitration filed against it by Spanish-based Gas Natural Fenosa in connection with the intervention and liquidation of its Electricaribe electricity distribution subsidiary, in which claims of more than €1 billion are at issue.
• Represented The Republic of Peru in a dispute over the cancellation of a contract worth more than US$400 million to construct an airport in Cusco, Peru, as well as arbitrations involving public concessions and other infrastructure projects.

• Represented AES Puerto Rico and its affiliates, suppliers of 25% of all power plant sources for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, in a successful comprehensive company-side restructuring with rights offering, conversion of municipal debt to preferred, restructured bond terms, and restructured offtake terms with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and approvals in coordination with four regulatory agencies.
• Represented financial industry leaders MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (the “Banks”) in connection with Samarco Mineração S.A.’s (“Samarco”) judicial reorganization under Brazil’s newly revised insolvency regime and Chapter 15 case in the United States. Samarco is a Brazilian producer of iron ore pellets that suffered one of the worst environmental disasters in Brazilian history when one of its tailings dams broke in 2015. Latin Lawyer recognized the restructuring of Samarco as the 2023 “Restructuring Deal of the Year.”