Biography: Oil and Gas

Mauricio is a partner of the firm with over 20 years of experience working in the oil and gas sector. He is licensed to practice law both in Colombia and the United States. He was admitted in 1984 in Colombia, in 1988 in the State of Louisiana and in 1990, in the State of Texas.

Mauricio previously worked with law firm Vinson & Elkins and Amoco Corporation, (currently BP) in Houston, Texas and in a number of Latin American countries where he represented clients in complex and sophisticated negotiations with governments and national petroleum agencies, acting on behalf of consortia of companies and multinational corporations in oil, natural gas, power generation, energy privatisation projects, both in the upstream and downstream sectors. He has also assisted international investors to explore and exploit hydrocarbons during competitive, international bid processes in various Latin American countries.

He represents oil and gas companies on exploration and production contracts, investment and financing agreements, upstream and downstream development projects, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and supply and products sales. Oil and gas companies regularly retain Mauricio in the evaluation and acquisition of exploration and production rights.

As a former head of the legal department of a financial group of companies, Mauricio is well versed in advising clients on the legal aspects of their multimillion dollar financing projects. His considerable expertise in this area has included assisting with the acquisition of equity positions in target companies, with company mergers, divestitures of exploration and production blocks and properties, stock purchases and sale of companies.

Over the course of his career, Mauricio has actively participated in the drafting of new hydrocarbon legal and contractual frameworks enacted in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. He has also been retained to provide legal counsel in the privatisation processes of a number of oil companies in these countries.

He has served as council member and member of the executive committee of the Inter-American Bar Association and previously served as president of the Public and Private International Law Committee from 1995 to 2007. He is a former director and founding member of the Hispanic Bar Association, and a former director of the Inter-American Chamber of Commerce, both in Houston, Texas. He has authored several written works and presentations on oil and gas matters in the United States and several Latin American countries. Fluent in English, Spanish, and French, he is a frequent speaker on energy matters at professional conferences.