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Silvana Aroca

Silvana Aroca Morón

Associate
Baker & McKenzie S.A.S.

Biography

Silvana has more than 7 years of professional experience and is an associate of the Companies, Restructures, and Investment Practice Group. She has focused her practice mainly on the incorporation, transformation, and winding up of companies; the structuring and negotiation of mercantile contracts; the implementation and strengthening of good corporate governance systems; and the design of strategies for the prevention and resolution of corporate conflicts.

She served as a Judge of the Division of Private Enforcement of the Colombian Superintendence of Companies —a specialized court in corporate dispute resolution— where she led cases of companies from different economic sectors in matters related to directors’ liability, piercing the corporate veil, abuse of voting rights, shareholders’ agreements, among others.

She is a member, as a Senior Fellow, of the Ibero-American Institute for Law and Finance, which seeks to promote the interdisciplinary study of law and finance, including corporate law.

She is a lawyer, graduated with honors from the Universidad Libre (Colombia), holds a graduate degree in commercial law from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and an MSc in Law and Finance from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom).

Practice Focus

Silvana focuses her practice on the advisory to national and international clients in the structuring and operation of their businesses in Colombia, through the incorporation of different corporate vehicles and providing support mainly in the compliance of the corporate obligations, capitalizations, corporate restructurings, implementation of good corporate governance practices with a special focus on the prevention of the corporate conflicts, structuring and negotiation of strategic alliances, and relations with authorities.

Representative Legal Matters

  • Advised a company in the automotive sector in the management of an internal conflict between their shareholders.
  • Advised the minority shareholders of a company in the pig farming sector in the design of the litigation strategy for the protection of their economic interests against the abusive actions of the controlling block.
  • Advised an international hotel chain in the legal feasibility analysis of a franchise business that would allow operating, under its brands, 12 hotels in Colombia.
  • Participated in the structuring of a strategic alliance for the development of a Project for the first Blockchain registry for Covid-19 vaccination.
  • Participated in the structuring of a strategic alliance with the cryptocurrency with the largest trading volume in the world as part of a pilot plan of the sandbox of the Financial Superintendence of Colombia.
  • Advised a test in the sandbox of the Financial Superintendence of Colombia for the issuance of a bond in a distributed data registry in Alliance with IDB Invest and the Central Bank in order to reduce operational costs, information asymmetries, and financial risks.
  • Advised the British Embassy in Colombia on an economic analysis of the business climate in Colombia.

Professional Associations and Memberships

  • Senior Fellow, Ibero-American Institute for Law and Finance

Admissions

  • Colombia (2015)

Education

  • University of Oxford (MSc in Law and Finance) (2020)
  • Universidad de los Andes (Graduate Degree in Commercial Law) (2016)
  • Universidad Libre (J.D.) (2015)

Languages

  • Spanish
  • English
  • Author, "Regulatory Challenges of the FinTech Industry", Industria Legal Magazine, Issue No. 5, August 2021
  • Co-Author, "La Desestimación de la Personalidad Jurídica en el Derecho Societario Colombiano", Foro del Jurista Magazine, Issue No. 40, July 2022
  • Speaker, "Problemáticas en el Régimen de Responsabilidad de los Administradores: Estándares de Revisión y Cargas Probatorias", Temas actuales en la Jurisprudencia Societaria, February 2023
  • Moderator, "Qardus: The UK’s First Ethical and Islamic Business Financing Platform", Oxford FinTech and LegalTech Society Trinity Term’s talks, June 2020