Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy

Mention Brazil, Mexico or Argentina to intellectual property owners a few years ago and exasperation was the mildest response you could have expected. But times have changed. International trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), the existence of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the realization that multinationals need to see strong intellectual property regimes before investing, have led to major improvements in the protection for rights owners. Among the beneficiaries of improved legislation have been domestic companies who are now enjoying more protection as a result of external pressures.

National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade Product Liability in Latin America: A Seminar for US Manufacturers, Exporters and Lawyers September 20-21, 2001, Sofitel Hotel, Miami, FLDiscussion and presentations on […]

A new phase of securitization in Latin American is beginning, slowly. While cross-border future flow transactions are still the bulk of the region?s asset-backed financing, more and more jurisdictions are laying the legal groundwork to allow a greater level of mortgage-backed financing. Brazil and, especially Mexico, are building up primary and secondary mortgage markets. Colombia, and to a lesser extent Chile, are also developing mortgage markets though neither country has yet logged significant transactions. Argentina was Latin America?s pioneer and leader in this area of finance but the economic crisis has stunted securitization activity.

As one of the world?s biggest opportunities for power-generation investment, one would think that Brazil would be inundated by foreign companies ready to pour millions into its large-scale thermal power plants that access the fuel reserves of the Brazil? Bolivia pipeline. Think again. Investors in Brazilian power must negotiate several obstacles, including hedging foreign currency risks, a murky privatization plan, and time-consuming environmental licensing. Although the upper echelons of government are trying to smooth the process for foreign investors in power generation, the courts are not playing favorites to powerful multinationals who are having to wait in line with everyone else.

New Arbiter in airline merger case Jorge Pinzon, Colombia’s newly appointed industry and trade superintendent, is stepping in to arbitrate the merger plans of Colombia’s two largest airlines after the […]

Along the sandy coast of the Gulf of Mexico rests Brazoria County, Texas. This agrarian community with its roots firmly planted in Texas tradition boasts the Annual Great Mosquito Festival and the Mexican Fiesta Youth Rodeo?not exactly an international city of law. But in an ironic twist of culture clash, this quiet Southern court system was subjected to the judicial version of polar attraction. Because the Texas state court system allows foreign residents to bring personal injury and wrongful death cases into the courts, Bolivia launched a major cross-border product liability suit smack in the middle of Brazoria.

Luis Moreno Ocampo is president of Transparency International for Latin America and the Caribbean and served as a prosecutor in the trials against the Argentine juntas. He is a partner of Moreno Ocampo & Wortman Jofre, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and currently visiting professor at Stanford. Here, he talks about corruption and the rule of law in Latin America and the forces that are bringing about change in the region.

Latin America is a region ripe with investment opportunities, but also one bedeviled with perils. The future of Latin America’s largest economies; Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, is looking uncertain. Yet […]

Venezuela?s Orinoco oil belt, the largest known hydrocarbon deposit in the world, is a gold mine both to the Venezuelan government and foreign investors. Sponsors Texaco, Phillips Petroleum and Venezuela?s national petroleum company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) signed a $1.1 billion financing as part of the $3.5 billion Hamaca oilfield project in June. Financial backing from the Export-Import Bank of the US helped garner support from commercial banks. But President Chavez wants to pass a new hydrocarbons law (see Promulgations page 8) that threatens to raise future financing costs for oil exploration projects and deter investment in Venezuela?s energy industry.