Álvaro Castellanos

Alvaro is president of the regional firm and partner in Consortium Legal – Guatemala. With 37 years of experience in the financial services and fintech, insurance and insurTech, and aviation sectors, he specializes in arbitration, banking, foreign investment, and mergers and acquisitions.

During his career he has served as president and member of several ad hoc committees in annulment proceedings under the ICSID Convention; president of the Board of Directors of the Dispute Resolution Commission of the Chamber of Industry of Guatemala; participated as ad hoc Judge in the Tiu Tojin vs. State of Guatemala of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, was Member for Guatemala before the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce -ICC- (2006-2018), member of the Editorial Board of IURISTEC (Compilation of Publications of Annotated Judicial Judgments), University Professor, Columnist in El Periódico and former Dean of the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of Rafael Landívar University.

Representative Experience

• Chair an Ad Hoc Committee on annulment in an ICSID case that is about to conclude its work when it communicates the respective annulment decision (ICSID case No. ARB/12/20)
• Participated in the acquisition by Promerica Financial Corporation of Banco Citibank de Guatemala, S.A., Cititarjetas, Limitada and other related companies; in an operation that will reach US$ 1,474 billion in assets and nearly 100 bank branches.
• Consortium – Legal (Guatemala) acted as Local Counsel for the Sole Lead Manager and Bookrunner of the Notes issued by the Republic of Guatemala in the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The issuance was made for US$500,000,000.00 but the Sole Lead Manager and Bookrunner received purchase orders in aggregate of US$1.69BN.
• Acted as counsel to Citibank, N.A. (Sucursal Guatemala) to grant a loan of approximately US$3,600,000.00 to Pegamorteros de Guatemala, S.A.
• Acted as special counsel to Banco de America Central, S.A. (BAC Guatemala) to obtain a US$50,000,000.00 loan from a bank syndicate led by Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A.

Education

• Candidate for Doctorate in Law, Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala
• Master of Laws (LL.M.), specialization in Comparative and International Law (Fulbright-Laspau Scholarship), Columbia University Law School, New York (1990)
• Degree in Legal and Social Sciences, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala (1986)