Mr Mauricio Halpern > DLA Piper Chile > Santiago, Chile > Lawyer Profile

The full-service offering at DLA Piper Chile provides the Santiago office’s banking and finance practice with global leverage during high-end international finance transactions involving other jurisdictions. In addition to the team’s assistance to international conglomerates and companies with their traditional financing activities, the group is active in several fintech industry areas, such as payments, P2P lending, cryptocurrencies, and investment and personal finance. The Chile banking and finance practice is led by Mauricio Halpern, who advises banks, borrowers and sponsors on the structuring of credit facilities. In the senior associate ranks, Eduardo Araya focuses on financing and debt structuring, while Vicente Vergara (who returned from a year at the firm’s New York offices in August 2023), advises borrowers on lending deals, structured products, and corporate and project financing.

Part of DLA Piper Chile‘s widely-respected corporate practice, the full-service regional player’s local compliance team assists with designing and implementing corporate compliance programmes, conducts criminal investigations, and advises on anti-corruption legislation, international sanctions, crime prevention, anti-money laundering and data protection compliance. Praised for its ‘practical legal knowledge, ability to adapt to new requirements and flexible billing’, the group also provides training to clients to help them identify potential risks and create tailored guides for their specific industry needs. The practice group recently experienced an increase in its workload, further to the publication of the amendment to Act 20,393 on Economic Crimes, which introduces new categories of offences, stricter penalties, and broader criminal liability for legal entities. The four-member compliance group is headed up by Mauricio Halpern (‘optimal availability and concern for the client’), who is experienced in developing and implementing regulatory compliance models, as well as assisting with the preparation of policies, procedures, reporting channels, risk matrixes, and control panels.  Halpern’s assistance also includes advises on best practices and market standards. May 2024 saw the team strengthened notably with the hire of former Albagli Zaliasnik practice director Francisca Franzani as a partner. Halpern and Franzani can also call on mid-level associate Andrea de la Vega who advises companies on regulatory compliance matters, in addition to acting in dispute resolution and civil litigation, such as defence-side consumer and customs law matters.