Cleary Gottlieb secures the award for Law Firm of the Year – Latin America for the sixth consecutive year after again leaving its imprint on many of the region’s most complex and market-shaping transactions.
During the awards period, the firm advised on several winning transactions, including sovereign and quasi-sovereign transactions for Mexico and Chile, financings for Codelco, and capital markets work for Argentina’s Grupo Financiero Galicia. It also played central roles in a wide range of bond issuances, restructurings, M&A transactions and equity offerings for blue-chip issuers such as Vale, Suzano, Eneva and Telecom Argentina.
The breadth of that activity reflects Cleary’s long-standing regional footprint and its ability to mobilize global resources across jurisdictions. The firm has spent more than six decades building its Latin America practice and now fields more than 240 Spanish-speaking and 40 Portuguese-speaking lawyers, coordinating seamlessly with capital markets and banking teams in New York, London and other financial centers.
Partner Jorge Juantorena, who heads the Latin America practice, says 2025 proved more resilient than many expected, despite sharp swings in investor sentiment.
“Overall, 2025 was a very good year, mostly on the debt side, but there were some positive developments on equity markets too,” he says.
He notes that optimism early in the year faded after the announcement of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies in April, before confidence returned in the second half as issuers adapted to tougher conditions. What distinguished the year, he adds, was the growing sophistication of structures used by both sovereign and corporate borrowers.
One defining example was Mexico’s issuance of $12 billion in P-Cap notes in the summer, part of a broader strategy to refinance obligations linked to Pemex. The transaction, one of the largest ever by an emerging market sovereign, showcased how structured solutions can unlock liquidity even in volatile markets.
Other hallmark mandates included the debt restructurings of Azul and Braskem in Brazil and Braskem Idesa in Mexico — transactions that blended liability management with new financing and demanded close coordination among creditors, issuers and regulators.
Juantorena sees this as evidence of a deeper shift in market attitudes.
“The stigma that used to be attached to debt restructuring deals in Latin America has gone away,” he says. “Companies now see it as just another tool, and sometimes it provides a better way of addressing issues and making sure that all creditors get involved.”
That trend toward complexity has played directly to Cleary’s strengths. Over the past decade, the firm has advised on more than $375 billion in capital markets offerings by Latin American issuers, according to its own figures, and in the first three quarters of 2025 alone was involved in over $8 billion of debt and equity offerings and nearly $20 billion of liability management transactions.
Its sovereign debt practice remains a standout, with mandates for Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and the Dominican Republic, often on precedent-setting transactions that reshaped regional yield curves and reopened access to international investors. The firm has also built a reputation for guiding inaugural issuers into global markets and structuring hybrid, ESG-linked and local-currency instruments.
Latin American capital markets in 2025 were marked by a rebound in sovereign issuance and a surge in liability management exercises, as governments and corporates refinanced near-term maturities against a backdrop of easing inflation and expectations of lower US interest rates. Mexico, Peru and Chile led issuance volumes, while Brazil and Argentina generated the bulk of restructuring and complex corporate finance work.
Cleary’s client roster underscores its dominance. The firm has advised a significant chunk of Latin America’s leading companies and financial institutions, spanning capital markets, M&A, banking and restructurings. Its multidisciplinary model — integrating corporate, regulatory and finance practices — has become a hallmark of its approach to cross-border transactions.
Looking ahead, Juantorena strikes an optimistic tone for 2026. He points to a strong pipeline of equity transactions waiting for the right market window, alongside growing interest in new financial tools and technologies.
“We are spending a lot of time talking to people about those issues, and that makes us optimistic that some deals will happen,” he says.