Mr Carlos Frías > HD Legal > Santiago, Chile > Lawyer Profile

HD Legal, known as Honorato | Delaveau until its 2023 rebrand, fields a six-member capital markets team that advises on a broad range of transactions. The group’s expertise covers corporate bonds, commercial papers, fund units, securitised bonds and securities. The firm is also home to investment, real estate and fintech sector specialists. Recent highlights include advising Ameris Administradora General de Fondos on its private debt funds’ investments. The team is led by managing partner and founder Sebastián Delpiano, who acts for companies, fintechs and venture capital entities on large transactions. Delpiano’s expertise encompasses financial products, derivatives, IPOs, securities brokerage issues, and debt and equity issuances. The practice also showcases securities law director Carlos Frias, an expert in banking, financial and securities market law, who assists with public and private offerings of securities. Frias’ career further includes working as in-house counsel at banking and multilateral financial institutions in Chile and the US. Highlighted from the firm’s associate team: senior Nicolás Garcia advises stockbrokers and securities agents on their daily operations, while Ignacio Ruiz-Tagle specialises in corporate and securities market-related work. At the more junior end, Gabriela Rojas rounds out the firm’s capital markets offering. Former senior associate Andrea Alarcón departed the firm in October 2023.

Highly experienced in the creation and implementation of compliance programmes, HD Legal‘s six-strong team routinely assists with the detection and mitigation of criminal risks, such as corruption, financial crimes, illegal competition and tax crimes. The firm is also home to specialists in corporate criminal liability involving consumer violations, data protection, information security, labour law, and environmental issues. It additionally advises companies on the establishment of mechanisms that promote diversity and inclusion, including assistance with the incorporation of transsexual workers in companies. Of particular note, the firm’s sister organisation HD Compliance is a compliance consulting firm that certifies companies’ compliance programmes. Recent highlights include advising retirement fund managing company, Caja de Compensación de Asignación Familiar de los Andes, on updating its crime prevention model. The group also assisted Chilean public bank BancoEstado Microempresas with developing a protocol that established behaviour-related guidelines for the workplace. The practice is headed up by Rebeca Zamora, who has extensive experience in advising on the design and implementation of compliance programmes; and José Luis Honorato is an arbitration and dispute resolution specialist. At director level, the career of financial sector expert Carlos Frías includes working as a Moneda Asset Management general counsel and compliance manager.