Eugenio Bernal

Eugenio Bernal is a member of White & Case's Global Debt Finance Practice. His practice focuses on advising financial institutions on complex regulatory and transactional matters.

In the regulatory arena, Eugenio is very experienced advising on all aspects of the operation of financial entities, including authorizations, supervisory procedures, sanctions and investigations, as well as the development, authorization and deployment of sophisticated financial products, both domestic and international. On the transactional side, he has extensive experience in both banking and securities financings, project financing, and mergers & acquisitions transactions.

Eugenio also has substantial debt restructuring experience, having participated in several high-profile matters over the years.

Prior to joining White & Case, Eugenio served as General Counsel and Secretary of the Board for BBVA México and its main subsidiaries. In such capacity, he led a team of more than 400 professionals nationwide advising the corporate and retail banking, M&A and investment banking divisions (including all strategic projects for the Group, which in turn included global projects developed from and/or piloted in Mexico), and handling all regulatory matters, as well as all litigation that ranged from debt collection, debtor restructurings and international commercial arbitration, to the defense of diverse lawsuits and actions against the BBVA Mexico and/or its subsidiaries in multiple forums (including the U.S.), and both offensive and defensive criminal litigation.

During his time at BBVA, Eugenio carried out the complete renovation and transformation of the Legal Department, including its 2019 restructuring under the Agile methodology.

While at BBVA, he also chaired the Legal Committee of the Mexican Banking Association, where he was closely involved with all regulatory developments in the financial sector and regularly participated in all substantial discussions with the Mexican authorities.

Eugenio started his legal career at White & Case, and spent 16 years in the Mexico City office as a banking, restructuring and litigation lawyer from 1996 to 2012. He co-founded the Firm’s dispute resolution capabilities in Mexico City in 2007, and was appointed partner in 2012.