What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Oleoducto Bicentenario de Colombia (Bicentenario) was involved in multiple domestic and international arbitrations examining pipeline transport contracts and joint investment agreements.

In 2018, shippers sent letters to Bicentenario claiming their rights to terminate the ship-or-pay transport contracts, which was entered into under a project finance structure. However, Bicentenario believed that the shippers were violating their obligations under such an agreement, and we declared that they failed to pay for transport services. We executed a standby letter of credit to guarantee its commitment to pay us.

Consequently, we filed five arbitration claims against shippers under the transport contracts. Additionally, two national and international claims were brought against the shippers under the investment agreement – the shippers were also shareholders of Bicentenario. The cross-border arbitration cases were challenging for the in-house legal counsel and the external ones.

With all these efforts by both external and international counsel as well as stakeholders of the company, we created a global settlement scheme which protected the interest of Bicentenario and introduced new business opportunities for the parties involved. This was approved by Colombian regulators, the Controllers General Office, and the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca, and it became the largest public settlement ever reached in the Republic of Colombia.

The entire process of handling multiple arbitration claims required top-notch analysis of complex corporate law issues, including a request for a waiver with the local banks of a syndicated loan, authorisations from regulatory entities in Colombia and structuring of new transport contracts that required a lot of creativity. This was jointly managed by a talented team consisting of external counsel, Zuleta Abogados Asociados and Brigard & Urrutia Abogados.