Practice Focus

Raul R. Herrera is a partner in the corporate and securities group where he concentrates his practice on international arbitration and international corporate and financing transactions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Herrera has been involved in financing transactions in every country of Latin America and the Caribbean. He represents multilateral and bilateral agencies in their project financing and private equity transactions.

Mr. Herrera previously served as general counsel for Inter-American Investment Corporation, a multilateral financial institution affiliated with the Inter-American Development Bank. His experience includes cross-border corporate and capital market transactions, comprising start-up de novo entities, asset and securities purchases, and expansion and acquisition transactions in a wide variety of industry sectors.

Mr. Herrera is active with The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, serving as a Member of the Executive Committee of its International Council and Chair of the Advisory Council and External Review Group for its Latin American Studies Program. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Inter-American Dialogue's Energy Adviser, and the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, and of the Catholic Charities Hispanic Catholic Center.

He served on the board of directors of the Inter-American Bar Association, and the Inter-American Bar Foundation, as Chair of the Investment and Finance Committee of the DC Bar, on the advisory board of the Hispanic College Fund, as a member of the Southern Florida Regional Corporate Counsel Group, and the Steering Committee for the Choral Arts Society's Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Tribute in Washington, DC.

Mr. Herrera is a frequent speaker on such topics as project finance, corporate governance, international arbitration, the WTO, and the economic development of and investment opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

He speaks fluent English and Spanish, and is conversant in Portuguese.

Representative Matters

• Representing the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in its US$120 million issue of floating-rate notes, maturing in 2012, for which UBS arranged the offering.
• Representing FMO, the Dutch bilateral development agency, in its senior term-loan financing to Bolivia's Banco Sol, S.A., for its on-lending to small and medium-sized enterprises operating in Bolivia.
• Representing Chile's Compañía General de Electricidad (CGE) in its term loan financing from Banco Santander for the acquisition of Spanish utility company Iberdrola's controlling stake in Chilean hydroelectricity company, Iberoamericana de Energía S.A. (Ibener).
• Representing CDB in its term loan to the Corporación Interamericana para el Financiamiento de Infraestructura (CIFI) to finance infrastructure projects throughout the Caribbean.
• Representing a geothermal development company in the development and financing of a geothermal power project in the Caribbean, including the negotiation of the interconnection, land use and equipment supply agreements.
• Representing a sovereign client in a contractual dispute in an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration against an ethanol manufacturer in an alleged breach of contract claim.
• Representing a private Panamanian financial institution in an international litigation against a global commercial bank in an alleged breach of contract claim.
• Representing the Dominican Republic in three international arbitrations (before ICC, ICSID and UNCITRAL) regarding alleged breaches of a concession agreement and international investment treaties.
• Representing Televisa's wholly-owned subsidiary, Innova S.A., in an eight-country merger and acquisition transaction, the first regional expansion for Innova outside of Mexico, to acquire DirecTv's satellite pay-for-television concession operations in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
• Representing the Chilean power company CGE in a US$517 million cross-border financing transaction funded by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), for the US$660 million acquisition from PPL Chile Energía Limitada of all the outstanding shares of Empresas EMEL S.A. through a tender offer process on the Chilean Stock Exchange. With this transaction, CGE is now the largest electricity distributor in Chile.
• Representing and successfully defending the Republic of Ecuador and its state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, on a request for a permanent stay of an AAA arbitration in the US Southern District Court of New York (on summary judgment).
• Representing the Republic of Ecuador and its state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, on the Circuit Court appeal of the US Southern District Court of New York's decision on summary judgment granting permanent stay of a American Arbitration Association (AAA) arbitration.
• Representing a private Venezuelan hotel consortium in an International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) arbitration against a major multinational hotel chain in an alleged breach of contract claim.

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