UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
Miami Division
CASE NO.: 21-22206-CIV-ALTONAGA
TÉCNICAS REUNIDAS DE TALARA S.A.C., a Peruvian corporation,
Petitioner, vs.
SSK INGENIERÍA Y CONSTRUCCIÓN S.A.C., a Peruvian corporation,
Respondent.
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SUPPLEMENTAL DECLARATION OF CRISTIÁN CONEJERO ROOS IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT’S MOTION TO DISMISS PETITION TO VACATE
FINAL ARBITRAL AWARD AND MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
Cristián Conejero Roos, an attorney duly admitted to practice before the courts of Chile, affirms the following to be true under penalty of perjury:
1. I am a partner at the law firm of Cuatrecasas Gonçalves Pereira, S.L.P.
(hereinafter “Cuatrecasas”) and am resident in the law firm’s Santiago, Chile office. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth herein and could and would testify to them if called upon to do so.
2. I have reviewed the Supplemental Declaration of Mr. Leandro Meneses (“Mr.
Meneses”) and the Declaration of Ms. Alma Gómez (“Ms. Gómez”) in support of Petitioner Técnicas Reunidas De Talara S.A.C.’s (“TRT”) Petition to Vacate the Award rendered in favor of Respondent SSK Ingeniería y Construcción S.A.C. (“SSK”).
3. I have never met, known of, or had any involvement with Ms. Alma Gómez. I was not aware of her existence until she submitted a declaration in this litigation. My limited interactions with TRT were always through Mr. Portocarrero and with Mr. Meneses.
4. I am submitting this supplemental declaration to address the multiple inaccuracies contained in Mr. Meneses’s supplemental declaration.
5. Mr. Meneses asserts in his supplemental declaration that “Conejero . . . fails to disclose fully that he was specifically brought into the arbitration at Portocarrero’s request to shore up TRT’s litigation team because, as Portocarrero explained to TRT at the time, Conejero was a veteran attorney experienced at handling large ICC arbitrations and his presence would be critical to the success of the arbitration.” Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 3 [ECF 21-1]. Nevertheless, I did disclose my role fully. As I stated in my first declaration, I was brought into the arbitration at Mr.
Portocarrero’s request. Conejero Decl. at ¶ 7 [ECF 15-2]. I also have never hidden the fact that I was brought into the case to strengthen TRT’s legal team for purposes of the hearings – the PPU Chile team and I had more experience than PPU Peru in handling evidentiary hearings. And I fully performed that role for TRT.
6. Mr. Meneses asserts in his supplemental declaration that “[i]n his effort to minimize his role in the arbitration proceeding, Conejero ignores the fact that his name appears on virtually all TRT submissions filed in the arbitration dating back to early 2019[.]” Meneses Suppl. Decl. at
¶ 4 [ECF 21-1]. This is false. In my first declaration, I expressly stated that “my name appears in the Terms of Reference of the ICC arbitration, and my signature is on each of the main submissions made by TRT.” Conejero Decl. at ¶ 5 [ECF 15-2]. I also stated, truthfully, that I was not part of TRT’s legal team at the start of the arbitration, nor did I have knowledge of the details of the case or access to its files prior to my engagement in late November 2019 to participate in the merits
hearing in March of 2020. Id. at ¶ 5. I stand by this assertion and again, I fully performed my role for TRT at the time.
7. Specifically, while it is true that I was consulted by TRT on the selection of David Cairns as its party-appointed arbitrator in July 2018, I was only asked to provide my general opinion on David Cairns (and other candidates) as an arbitrator. I did not contact Mr. Cairns or any other candidate, nor did I intervene in or have any knowledge of the case and its details at that time. It is common practice for arbitration practitioners to share information about arbitrators, such as their diligence, their tendencies and practices, their language skills, their commercial mindedness, among other characteristics. This is all the more true for individuals who also sit as arbitrators, like me. I regularly advise my fellow partners on arbitrator candidates for their matters, and I regularly seek advice from my fellow partners (and colleagues in general) about arbitrator candidates for mine. That does not evidence or even imply any direct involvement or responsibility of a particular matter. My name and signature were included in the Terms of Reference and appended to TRT’s substantive pleadings exclusively for purposes of simplifying my entry to the case at a later point in time, if needed, and to impress the Tribunal with the strength of TRT’s legal team. But to be clear, aside from providing general commentary on Mr. Cairns’s fitness as an arbitrator, I had no role in the arbitration prior to my engagement to participate at the merits hearing. The cost submission in the ICC arbitration demonstrates this – I billed no hours to the ICC arbitration until February 2020, which is when I began my preparatory work for the merits hearing. See Conejero Decl. at ¶ 21 [ECF 15-2].
8. Mr. Meneses asserts in his supplemental declaration that “in addition to the significant work performed by Conejero at the final hearing, Conejero and his associate, Gianfranco Lotito (“Lotito”), were also involved in the preparation of witnesses leading up to the
final hearing, including, importantly, the preparation of Juan Jose Franco, TRT’s manager for the Talara project and TRT’s sole fact witness in the arbitration. Conejero and Lotito spent hours in the weeks leading up to the final hearing on witness preparation.” Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 6 [ECF 21-1]. This is true, but Mr. Meneses’s insinuation that this work is separate and distinct from what I was brought into the case to do, namely, participate at the hearing, is incorrect.
Witness and expert preparation are ordinary and essential activities that an attorney must carry out in preparation for his or her intervention in a merits hearing. It was my job to represent TRT at the hearing, and preparing its witnesses and experts was part of that job. To that end, I arrived to Madrid one week before the hearing to meet with TRT’s experts and witness, and to prepare my part of TRT’s opening statement. Thus again, I fully performed my role leading up to and including the merits hearing.
9. Mr. Meneses asserts in his supplemental declaration that my testimony in this matter is contradicted by my own invoices. In particular, he states that “following the conclusion of the final hearing on March 6, 2020, Conejero continued to bill TRT for legal services rendered in the arbitration. Significantly, and contrary to his assertion that he was never expected to work on TRT’s post-hearing submissions, Conejero billed TRT for a total of six hours on March 16 and 17, 2020 to review the final hearing transcripts, and another three hours for a meeting in Lima on March 19.” Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 8 [ECF 21-1]. This is false. I am not aware of nor do I control what PPU billed or invoiced TRT, but I hereby declare under oath that I did not work on the ICC arbitration following my participation at the hearing, nor did I personally bill time to the matter following my participation at the hearing. Although it does not seem relevant to the overall issue before the Court, any such discrepancy between the time I know I billed to TRT and what PPU invoiced would need to be taken up with Mr. Portocarrero. As I mentioned in my first
declaration, “[e]ven if the plan had been for me to continue on the matter following my departure from PPU, which it never was, as a senior partner I would not have had a role, much less a substantial one, in preparing TRT’s post-hearing brief.” Conejero Decl. at ¶ 22 [ECF 15-2]. This is particularly true regarding transcript review – that is not a task I would have undertaken. The invoices submitted with Mr. Meneses’s supplemental declaration also reflect that I attended a meeting in Lima on March 19, 2020. Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 8 [ECF 21-1]. But this is also false, and indeed, impossible. Chile closed its borders in response to the COVID 19 pandemic on March 18, 2020. I could not have traveled to Lima to attend this meeting. Nor, to the best of my recollection, did I have any other type of contact with Mr. Meneses on that date.
10. Mr. Meneses asserts that my statement that I devoted less than 200 hours to the ICC arbitration is misleading because I did not reference the other members of the PPU Chile team.
Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 10 [ECF 21-1]. I disagree. The Petition to Vacate impugns my behavior and Mr. Lotito’s behavior specifically, not the behavior of the rest of the PPU Chile team, which is why I focused my first declaration on our involvement. In any event, the total hours devoted to the ICC arbitration by all the attorneys of PPU Chile are but a small fraction of the total hours devoted to the ICC arbitration by the PPU Lima and Uria teams. In total, PPU Lima and Uria billed approximately 6,700 hours to the ICC arbitration – PPU Chile’s hours in total were equal to less than 15% of the hours billed by PPU Lima and Uria, and my hours in particular were equal to less than 3% of the hours billed to TRT. See Conejero Decl. at ¶ 21, Annex 1 [ECF 15-2]. All of the hours I billed to TRT, and the vast majority of hours that the PPU Chile attorneys billed to TRT, corresponded to preparatory work for the hearing, and participating at the hearing itself.
Again, and without quibbling with Mr. Meneses on irrelevant facts, we fully carried out the role I was asked to serve for TRT, which was the workup and attendance at the merits hearing.
11. Mr. Meneses’s statements regarding our interactions and my disclosures to him are also incorrect. He insinuates that I was lying when I said I informed him of my plans to start a boutique practice. I was not. As I stated in my first declaration, I actually incorporated my own firm, known as Conejero y Asociados SpA, on January 17, 2020, which evidences the seriousness of my intentions at the time to leave PPU before even deciding to join Cuatrecasas. Conejero Decl.
at ¶ 13 [ECF 15-2].
12. Mr. Meneses also says that “at no point prior to April 10, 2020 did Conejero ever tell me that he was joining Cuatrecasas, that he was in negotiations with Cuatrecasas, or that he received an offer of employment from Cuatrecasas.” Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 11 [ECF 21-1].
This is false. At our in-person meeting on January 30, 2020, which Mr. Portocarrero also attended, I informed Mr. Meneses that I was resigning from PPU to set up a boutique, but that I would remain with PPU until the end of March 2020. Additionally, I informed Mr. Meneses that although I was setting up a boutique, it was also possible that I would join a large international firm, and that if I were to pursue that route, Cuatrecasas would be one of my options.
13. Finally, Mr. Meneses asserts that Mr. Portocarrero did not tell him about my departure to Cuatrecasas on March 31, 2020. Meneses Suppl. Decl. at ¶ 13 [ECF 21-1]. However, Mr. Portocarrero specifically confirmed to me on that very day that he had fully communicated this information to Mr. Meneses.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America and the State of Florida that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed in Santiago, Chile on August 30, 2021
