An important part of our practice is advising companies in the financial sector, with respect to all their legal and business matters.
We draft and review financing documents, standard form agreements, we deal with consumer law and antitrust issues, capital markets and the placing of banking, insurance and investment products in Venezuela; we are also very involved in the analysis of the current exchange control regulations.
We are recognized experts in insurance and reinsurance, giving assistance to major international corporations, and their local subsidiaries, as well as national companies. We have also assisted the Chamber of Insurers.
We counsel important international banks on local issues, such as project financings and debt restructurings, and in matters regarding their Venezuelan clients and interests. Citibank N.A. has been assisted by our attorneys since the incorporation of its Venezuelan branch in 1917. We acted as counsel to the syndicated bank lenders in most of the major project financings and debt restructurings of the last decades: Petrozuata, Hamaca, Fertinitro, Digitel, Sidor, etc. We continued to advise such bank lenders in subsequent circumstances, which include the nationalization of complete sectors of the economy. The security trust designed by our firm for the 2000 Sidor debt restructuring was the first security trust over project assets in a syndicated loan in Venezuela. The security trusts we designed for the Hamaca and Digitel transactions were the first trusts of their kind in the oil and telecommunications sectors.
Our local banking practice includes major local financial institutions, whom we assist with regard to their corporate, regulatory and contractual matters.
Our assistance includes litigation. We represent banks, insurers and reinsurers before the local courts, including the Supreme Tribunal. We also work with international firms in arbitration and litigation abroad, regarding local insurance and banking laws.
Additionally, we assist many of our clients in the insurance and banking sectors with regard to their dealings before their respective Superintendencies. We have prepared detailed studies of the banking and insurance regulatory frame for our clients of those sectors.
Our lawyers are renowned authors of books and legal articles on banking, insurance and finance issues.