Wilbert Luna Arellanes

Representative transactions include:

Technology

• Participated in the drafting and negotiation of a multi-year cloud services agreement on behalf of our client, a Latin American country, which will enhance the provision of public services like health and education for ~6 million people (deal value: USD 300 million). This included drafting the national law that enabled the deal.
• Participated in the drafting and negotiation of different cloud services agreements for a total combined value of more than USD 364 million.
• Current coordinator of a team of two associates of the Mexico City office, and one associate from the Houston office, to serve as secondees to our client, a Big Tech company, assisting in a variety of contractual matters relating different jurisdictions of Latin America, including Brazil, such as drafting and negotiating non-disclosure agreements, cloud agreements with regulated financial entities, as well as vendor forms for business partners of our client to serve promptly their own customers.

Financial Services Regulatory

• Regular advisor on financial integrity compliance to one of the largest asset managers in the world. 
• Current advisor on payments, cryptocurrencies, anti-money laundering, and data privacy, for one of the most important messaging platforms in the world. 
• Advisor on the validity of different securities custody agreements, involving a number of jurisdictions, for the Mexican branch of a global systemically important bank. 
• Successfully defending an American fintech company from fines of US$2 million, due to alleged anti-money laundering breaches. 
• Represented Mexico as a delegate to the Plenary of the Financial Action Task Force, the global standard-setter for anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism.** 
• Represented Mexico as a delegate to the Working Party 10 of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development while drafting the Commentaries to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), an international instrument aimed to tackle cross-border tax evasion.** 
• Analyzed how the Mexican branch of one of the largest Spanish insurers could invest its technical reserves in securities traded in both Luxembourg and Switzerland.**   

Sovereigns

• Currently counsels the Office of the President of a Latin American country regarding an ambitious legal reform program to foster the development of the nation's economy, on matters like corporate law, banking, fintech, Web3 activities, public-private partnerships, etc. This included reforming the country’s Commerce Code in order to foster economic development and foreign investment.
• Helped design the strategy for the interaction of an Eastern European country with the Financial Action Task Force.
• Performed as advisor of a Middle Eastern central bank on the country's financial regulatory reform.
• Advise to a development bank of the French Government on sovereign guarantees.
• Counselled an African central bank in preparation for country's mutual evaluation on anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism.
• Being part of the successful defense team of a former President of Mexico on a US$50 million tort case before different US Federal Courts (including the Supreme Court of the United States).**
• Part of the two-people team that drafted a US$1.2 billion take-or-pay agreement in connection with oil, natural gas, and water on behalf of the Mexican State Oil Company.**

Antitrust/Competition

• Helped client to obtain the antitrust authorization to sell a 168-MW wind farm in the north of Mexico (deal value: US$250 million). 
• Successfully advised a corporate group in a high-profile cartel investigation in the hydrocarbons sector in Mexico. 
• Provided merger-control advice to a technology entity, quoted on the FTSE 250 Index, related to the purchase of an electronic-gaming company with operations in seven countries.** 
• Advising one of the largest agricultural unions of Mexico, to initiate an investigation for abuse of dominant position in the seeds' distribution market.**

Regulatory & Compliance

• Advise on public procurement and anti-bribery and corruption to an oil and gas company, in connection with a Deferred-Prosecution Agreement executed with authorities from the United States of America.
• Advise on anti-corruption for a Japanese infrastructure developer, as well as for the Mexican branch of an American bank.
• Advised the Argentinian branch of one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world on which anti-bribery and corruption norms it had to comply with in order to operate in Mexico, with parties from both the United States and the United Kingdom.** 

Data, Privacy & Cybersecurity

• Coordinated a team of four associates from the Miami, Houston, and São Paulo offices, to draft a multijurisdictional guidance for the processing of personal data pertaining to employees of one of the most important energy and commodities companies in the world.
• Advise on Mexican data protection to one of the most important messaging platforms in the world.
• Advise on personal data sharing between the entities of a corporate group that comprises a retail company and a bank.
• Advisor to large financial institutions on cybersecurity incidents from the legal standpoint.

** Some of the above representations were handled by Luna Arellanes prior to his joining White & Case, S.C.