DLA Piper Chile announces launch of White Collar practice

DLA Piper Chile announced the launch of its White Collar practice, to be led by attorney Ignacio Schwerter, who joined the firm on September 2 as counsel.

The new practice will meet clients’ needs under new legal changes that have substantially extended criminal liability relating to bribery, corruption, unfair administration, incompatible negotiation, environmental crimes, and breaches of capital market rules. The White Collar practice will complement the work of DLA Piper Chile’s existing Litigation and Compliance practice areas and will coordinate its efforts with the firm’s US and global White Collar practices.

Ignacio Schwerter brings more than 15 years of experience advising both natural and legal persons in highly complex criminal litigation. He has worked in the criminal law firm Cortés y Rodríguez since 2007 and has been a partner of that firm since 2012. He graduated from the Law School of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2004.

Schwerter served as an assistant of the Criminal Law Department at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile from 2006 to 2010. He also worked as an assistant in several optional criminal law courses at the university, including Criminal Organizations and Illicit Association between 2004 and 2006, Computer Crimes in 2005 and Economic Crimes in 2005. Additionally, he was an assistant of the Commercial Law Department at the Catholic University from 2003 to 2005.

Before joining Cortés y Rodríguez, he worked as an associate lawyer in the litigation area of the law firm Morales, Noguera, Valdivieso & Besa from 2005 to 2007.

DLA Piper’s presence in Chile allows the firm to more effectively address the growing demand from clients in Latin America for comprehensive advice across a range of practices. The launch of the White Collar practice by DLA Piper Chile is consistent with DLA Piper’s global efforts to provide timely and sophisticated economic criminal advice to its clients and constitutes an important step in the expansion of the firm.