Garrigues hires two new partners in Mexico

Lawyers Gerardo Lemus and Santiago Chacón have joined Garrigues’ Mexico office as partners to further consolidate the commercial and tax law practices.

Gerardo Lemus, with over twenty-four years’ experience, joins Garrigues’ corporate/commercial law practice in Mexico from law firm Kuri Breña, Sánchez Ugarte y Aznar, S.C. An expert in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, international finance, real estate law and telecommunications law, he is also well versed in economic competition matters.

Gerardo has broad expertise in major acquisitions of shares and assets involving local and foreign companies, including private equity investment funds. He has also notably participated in debt restructuring and financing deals. In recent years, his practice has focused on the sale and purchase, financing, marketing and operation of telecommunications towers in Mexico. He also has experience in the construction and financing of infrastructure projects.

He joins fellow new hire Santiago Chacón, who joined the tax practice as a partner in late 2015. With more than seventeen years’ experience, Santiago provides expert advice to foreign and Mexican companies, particularly in the areas of tax planning of investments in Mexico and tax treatment of nonresidents, having spent the majority of his professional career at EY.

His expertise centers on multinational projects, advising numerous groups of Mexican and foreign investors on mergers and acquisitions, including sell- and buy-side due diligence and structuring processes. He also specializes in tax planning and compliance in Mexico, structuring of infrastructure projects, mainly energy facilities, financial structuring and complex corporate restructuring processes. He has extensive experience in the prevention and resolution of disputes with the Mexican tax authorities. As legal counsel, he has advised companies in a wide range of sectors: energy, oil & gas, consumer products, retail, transportation and mining, among others.

With these hires, the Mexican office, headed by partner Antonio Bulnes, now boasts twenty lawyers (five of whom are partners) specializing in the main areas of business law. Throughout Latin America, Garrigues now has close to one hundred professionals. Operating out of its offices in Mexico City, Bogota, Peru and São Paulo, Garrigues has the largest network of own offices in the region among the major European law firms. In the words of Javier Ybáñez, the partner in charge of the Latin American practice, “our goal is to continue growing and to become the firm of choice in Latin America by progressively opening own offices in the region and in other strategic areas for our Latin American clients.” The firm recently inaugurated its new office in Beijing, building on the success of its office in Shanghai (opened in 2005), both of which are strategic cities for coordinating transactions between Latin America and Asia.