Successful Mergers and Acquisitions in Latin America Conference in Miami

The IBA conference on Mergers and Acquisitions in Latin America took place last week in Miami, with the participation of more than 500 delegates. Once again, the event has been a resounding success, despite the last-minute location changes, originally set to take place in Quito, Ecuador. The organization of the IBA has been impeccable as always, and gave all of us the opportunity to keep up-to-date on all current legal and financial issues in the area.
The event began with an interesting session about Artificial Intelligence in the mergers and acquisitions process and the responsibility of lawyers who use it in their operations, moderated by Adriana Castro (BLP) and Juan Manuel Marchan (Perez Bustamante & Ponce). This session delved into the transformative role of artificial intelligence in the M&A space.

An interesting topic was the presentation on investment in China: different opportunities and challenges in North America and Latin America. It is well known that China is continuously acquiring foreign companies, and the panellists discussed whether Chinese investment is necessary and how to rebuild the bridge between China and the Americas.

An issue of great importance and one that was subject to intense debate was that of Antitrust Due Diligence, compliance and data privacy analysis. Without a doubt, compliance with competition regulations and data privacy are currently some of the main priorities in the legal and business field. This session was masterfully moderated by Andrea Von Chrismar (Prieto Abogados) and Juan Manuel Mercant (Guyer & Regules).

LARF co-chairs Benjamín Grebe (Prieto, Chile) and Juan Manuel Mercant (Guyer & Regules, Uruguay), M&A Committee co-chair Nicolás Piaggio (Guyer & Regules), IBA Vice President Jaime Carey (Carey, Chile) and LARF Membership Officer Sandra Reed (Pérez Bustamante & Ponce, Ecuador) gave an excellent review of the conference.

Benjamín highlighted that "the Miami conference was a great success thanks to the effort and work of the IBA, the officers and delegates. We finally managed to transfer the spirit of our Latin American LARF forum, and the organisation that had already been done for Quito allowed the final conference to be held in Miami in just a few days. The level of the panels was very high, with innovative speakers and with an Opening Ceremony in which we had the opportunity to listen and interview the General Counsel of the FIFA World Cup".