Was a pioneer in Argentine Environmental Law, and became an undisputed referent in the field.
After developing the Environmental Law area at the Allende & Brea Law Firm for more than ten years, he branched out in 2005 and, together with Mr. Hugo Bunge Guerrico, Mr. Pedro Zambrano and a team of excellent professionals, they formed the Environmental Law Business Unit at Rattagan Macchiavello Arocena & Peña Robirosa Law Firm.
This team has decided to continue under the name Estudio Gabriel Macchiavello, with its 23 members, partners, lawyers, paralegals and collaborators, many of whom have an extensive career and have worked alongside its founding partner, e.g. Ms. Juliana Salvucci, Ms. Belen Counduros and Mr. Ramón Santamarina.
Specializes in Environmental Law, with focus on Industrial and Corporate needs.
Our staff, highly experienced in the matter, provides both international and domestic corporations with advice on Technical Environmental standards and regulations.
Every operation, counsel, administrative or judicial defense will encompass a comprehensive view of the Legal System to help enjoy all the rights and guarantees set forth in our Constitution, i.e. sustainable development, engaging in a lawful activity, private property, reasonability of regulations, nulla pena sine lege, or the right to a defense.
Specializes in Environmental Law, with focus on Industrial and Corporate needs.
Our staff, highly experienced in the matter, provides both international and domestic corporations with advice on Technical Environmental standards and regulations.
Every operation, counsel, administrative or judicial defense will encompass a comprehensive view of the Legal System to help enjoy all the rights and guarantees set forth in our Constitution, i.e. sustainable development, engaging in a lawful activity, private property, reasonability of regulations, nulla pena sine lege, or the right to a defense.
Assessment in
Environmental Law
Mr. Hugo Bunge Guerrico earned his Law degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1972, and has more than forty years of professional experience.
He was founding partner at Nicholson & Cano Abogados in 1976 and, was the managing partner of the firm from 1983 through 1991. In that role, he was in charge of the legal orientation, the scientific quality and the practicality of the advice offered to all the firm’s clients. This role turned him into a general practitioner with knowledge in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Procedure Law, expert in regulations applied to specific corporate activities, as the sugar industry and the reinsurance regulatory framework.
As leading attorney of the Ledesma group, between 1976 and 1995, and several other sugar companies and leading insurance companies, he participated in complex conflicts among private companies and the Federal Administration, and inter-company conflicts, which allowed him to specialize in the strategic direction of these types of litigations.
Since 2002, he was of counsel to Gabriel Macchiavello –then partner with Allende & Brea– collaborating with him in his clients’ judicial and administrative procedures in connection with Environmental Law.
In 2005, he was one of the seven partners that constituted the firm “Rattagan, Macchiavello, Arocena.” Since then, he has participated with Mr. Gabriel Macchiavello and Mr. Pedro Zambrano in the strategic direction of environmental conflicts of the firm’s clients.
He is proficient in English.
Mr. Pedro L. Zambrano specializes in environmental conflicts and conflicts with government agencies, as well as corporate advice in environmental regulation and its adequate analysis to avoid or mitigate those conflicts. His solid academic background, and his 35-year old expertise in litigation in different fields, have made him an expert in highly complex administrative procedures and legal processes on toxic tort cessation and redress.
He earned his Law degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1995. From 1997 through 1998, he completed a Postgraduate course in Economic Administrative Law at the Argentine Catholic University, with the highest GPA of his class, and the maximum grade for his thesis.
From 1990 through 1999, he worked at the Federal Administrative Courts, where he was promoted to Court Clerk. In 2000, he was recruited as senior associate at Allende & Brea, where he first collaborated in the creation of the Administrative Law Area and then he consolidated the Environmental Law Area in that law firm.
He was a founding partner of Rattagan Macchiavello Arocena & Peña Robirosa at the time of its creation, in 2005.
His professional experience in litigation, his solid academic training and his eighteen years collaborating with Mr. Gabriel Macchiavello make him one of the most experienced specialists in administrative procedures and judicial cases related to environmental conflicts in different scenarios (civil, criminal, administrative, etc.). In this field, he intervened in high-profile environmental cases representing interests of top domestic, international and foreign companies with activity in our country and in Latin America. He has participated in several toxic torts in the upstream, midstream and downstream oil, mining and chemical industries, as well as other industries, leather, meat processing, food, paint, water extraction and bottling, petcoke calcination and storage, transgenic seeds and agrochemicals’ production, herbicides, diesel engines emissions, hazardous waste, etc.
His extensive experience in environmental conflicts within the judicial and administrative systems, across diverse industries and regions, provides him with a comprehensive understanding of the environmental issue en the legal system. This expertise, combined with their strong academic background, enables him to effectively advise on the interpretation of environmental laws, regulations, and standards and assess the constitutional validity and reasonable application of relevant regulations by national and local authorities, in order to help clients avoid or mitigate conflicts with regulatory authorities, neighboring communities, and indigenous groups. He also regularly advise on environmental impact assessments for public works and renewable energy projects, as well as on corporate acquisitions and the identification of legal and environmental risks.
He teaches “Environmental Damage Liability” and “Environmental Procedural Law” in the specialization program at the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) and the master’s program at Austral University. He also taught “Elements of Administrative Law” for several years at the University of Buenos Aires. He is a frequent speaker at conferences in his field.
Among his multiple academic works, we can highlight his publications on Environmental Constitutional Law: “El daño ambiental y la obligación de remediar” [Environmental Damage and the Obligation to Remediate], written with Mr. Gabriel Macchiavello for the Energía & Negocios magazine, Year 10, No. 107, June 2005; or “El derecho de defensa en juicios ambientales” [The justify to a Defense in Toxic Torts], La Ley magazine, 11/29/06, page 5, written on occasion of the Supreme Court ruling in the case “ASSUPA” in August 2006, when an exception for insufficiency of a pleading was sustained, marking an inflection point in legal precedence, which allowed a defendant to prove his case in the face of generic environmental arguments.
His academic training in Administrative Law and legal processes has led him to publish works on precautionary measures, as “Medidas cautelares autónomas y el derecho de defensa en juicio: ¿Por el artículo 12 de la Ley 19.549 o por el artículo 230 del Código Procesal?” [Autonomous Precautionary Measures and the justify to a Defense in Trial: Through Section 12 of Law 19 549 or Section 230 of the Procedure Code?], La Ley magazine, 1998-C, pages 344 – 354;
With a focus on administrative law and the protection of constitutional rights, he has published, among other works, a key text on “Administration’s Silence and Statutory Deadlines to Sue the Federal Administration. Prescription and Limitation in View of the New Regulation on Pre-Litigation Procedures” (Lexis Nexis, Colección Monografías Jurídicas N° 155, Buenos Aires, 2006).
He also is proficient in English.
Ms. Juliana Salvucci graduated with honors from the University of Buenos Aires in 2004. Since then she has consolidated her career as a toxic tort specialist.
While she was a student, she worked for a Federal Civil Court as Court Aide, and then she worked for three years at Hope, Duggan & Silva, in the Administrative, Civil and Commercial Litigation areas.
She began focusing on Environmental Law since she was an undergraduate, and went on to take several Postgraduate courses on the subject. In 2005, she took the Postgraduate Course on Environmental Law and Economy offered by the University of El Salvador and the Carlos III University of Madrid, and in December 2009, she completed the Refresher Program in Oil and Gas of the University of Buenos Aires.
She was also assistant teacher in the orientation cycle of the University of Buenos Aires’s Law School in the subject “The justify to the Environment in Case Law” (2006-2012) and participated in many seminars and conferences on environmental issues and legal conflicts.
She was incorporated to the Environmental Conflicts’ Area of the Firm in 2008, and since then, she worked alongside Mr. Gabriel Macchiavello and Mr. Pedro Zambrano. This collaboration helped her acquire vast experience in different aspects of environmental conflicts (contentious administrative, civil and criminal, etc.) and gave her a comprehensive view of the conflict in order to draft more efficient defense strategies. At the same time, she has learned how to prevent prosecution for these conflicts by drafting the justify proposals.
She can interpret the technical-scientific disciplines related to Environmental Law, which helps her coordinate the necessary actions to assess the sites’ environmental situation, the production of expert reports and challenges. She also provides advice on environmental liability assessment.
She currently collaborates with Mr. Pedro Zambrano in the direction of legal and administrative processes of the Firm.
She is a professor, together with Pedro Zambrano, in “Liability for environmental damage” and “Environmental Litigation” in the Specialization Career of the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA) and in the Master’s Degree of the Universidad Austral.
She is a member of the group of lawyers of IDEA (Institute for Business Development of Argentina).
She is proficient in English and has an intermediate level of French.
Ms. Belén Counduros earned her Law degree from the Torcuato Di Tella University in 2008.
In 2011, she took the ISO 14 001 internal auditor course at Bureau Veritas. In 2013-2014, she took the Environmental Law Specialization Course at the Argentine Catholic University.
Between 2009 and 2015, she was an associate at a law firm specialized in Environmental Law.
She was incorporated to the firm in 2015, and she worked closely with Mr. Gabriel Macchiavello. She now leads the Environmental Law advisory area, where she handles complex soil and groundwater remediation processes.
In this field, she has proven experience to support our clients in remediation processes, designing different courses of action to comply with the technical and legal demands of different projects, and representing our clients before the authorities.
She also offers advice on regulatory matters, environmental due diligence processes and she coordinates the update of the Environmental Matrices Management System –SIGEMA for its Spanish acronym-, a tool that allows different corporations to verify their compliance with environmental regulatory obligations, and be updated on environmental legislation.
She knows technical-environmental standards in depth, which allows her to coordinate and perform S&H and environmental compliance audits at different facilities across the country, and she often provides trainings on the interpretation and enforcement of environmental regulations.
Her profile is highly regarded by the firm’s Environmental Conflict team, as she provides invaluable support in drawing up judicial and administrative documents that require thorough knowledge of the technical standards and industrial processes involved.
She also supports her clients in obtaining environmental permits, licenses and authorizations, and in negotiating sales and acquisitions of industrial sites with environmental liability.
She participates in the Environmental Law Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of Argentina (AMCHAM).
She is proficient in French and English.
Mr. Ramón Santamarina earned his Law Degree from the Argentine Catholic University, has a BA in Corporations (Universidad Notarial), and a Master’s Degree in Economic Integration Law (La Sorbonne-Paris University, together with Universidad del Salvador.)
He specializes in Insurance and Reinsurance Law, and has more than 30 years of experience in that field. He has participated in the development of new products and special coverages, drafting and handling the terms and conditions of policies and other contractual instruments. Particularly, he has drawn up insurance policies for environmental liability, transport and environmental damage, and has counseled the authorities in the creation of regulatory standards in this field and in matters of self-insurance.
He has also played an active role in corporate matters, financial businesses and real estate operations. He participated in the elaboration of financial, administration and guarantee trusts, both through public and private offerings.
He was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board at Zurich Argentina Compañía de Seguros (until 2004), and prior to that, he had worked in areas such as Legal Services and Claims, surety bonds, liability and other complex lines of insurance. Also in that company, he was in charge of the South American South Cone market (until 2004.)
He was a member of the Board of Directors of Compañía de Seguros de Crédito a la Exportación (until 1992).
He was member of the Executive Committee of the Foreign Insurers Association (representative of branches and general agencies of foreign insurers in the country) and member of the Management Board of the Argentine Association of Insurance Companies.
In 2005, he was one of the seven partners that constituted the firm “Rattagan, Macchiavello, Arocena.”
In the last years, he has participated in different corporate and real estate operations, and other contract issues where environmental matters were involved.
Specifically, in terms of environmental insurance, he has collaborated with the authorities in the regulation of that line of insurance, he has lectured at many conferences and written articles on the subject, including related matters such as financial guarantees, environmental self-insurance, liability of directors and managers over environmental damage and their insurance.
He is proficient in English.
Ms. Andrea Gonda earned her Law degree from the University of Buenos Aires in March, 2014.
As a Law undergraduate, she performed administrative tasks and was teaching assistant in the subject of General Theory of Law at the University of Buenos Aires’ Law School.
She has taken different refresher courses offered by the University of Buenos Aires.
She was incorporated to the firm as Junior Associate in July 2014 and she currently is a Senior Associate with the Environmental Unit’s Advisory Area.
Among the different tasks that she performs, she provides advice on S&H, environmental and occupational health matters. She also assists our clients in processes necessary to obtain environmental permits, authorizations and licenses, or any other requirement issued by Federal, Provincial or Municipal authorities.
She has broad experience in conducting environmental and safety & hygiene compliance audits in industrial facilities, agricultural activities, mines, among others across the country.
Her vast knowledge of applicable technical-environmental regulations allows her to work in coordination with the Firm’s team of environmental conflicts in the elaboration of answers to complaints and administrative remedies.
She coordinates, with Belén Counduros, the update of the Environmental Matrices Management System –SIGEMA for its Spanish acronym- and the elaboration of regulatory matrices.
She is proficient in English.
Ms. Florencia Borsani earned her Law degree from the University of Buenos Aires in December 2011.
From 2008 through 2012, she worked independently on tort cases as plaintiff. Later, she worked on cases involving labor risk insurers.
She was incorporated to the Environmental Conflict area of our firm in May 2015 and is a Senior Associate.
Thanks to her broad experience and her invaluable work capacity Ms. Borsani handles Court and administrative cases with great professionalism. She has also participated in the production of complex technical expert reports and other evidence related to toxic torts, furthering her professional background in the matter.
She is proficient in English.
Ms. Carolina Barzi earned her Law degree from the Argentine Catholic University in December 2011.
From 2012 to 2019, she worked as a legal-environmental advisory specialist attorney.
In 2014-2015, she took the Environmental Law Specialization Course at the Argentine Catholic University.
She was incorporated to the Environmental Law Advice Area of our firm in 2020.
She has broad experience in preparation of environmental and safety & hygiene matrices.
She participates in environmental due diligence processes and environmental and safety & hygiene compliance audits in different companies.
She also provides legal advice on national, provincial and municipal environmental permits processing.
She dictates environmental and safety & hygiene incident prevention training conferences.
She performs as an assistant professor on the “Environmental principles and policies” subject at the Argentine Catholic University.
She is proficient in English.
Mr. Bruno Pileggi earned his Law degree from Universidad del Salvador’s School of Juridical Sciences in April 2015.
Between 2017 and 2018 he took the Environmental Law Specialization Course at the Argentine Catholic University.
From 2012 through 2015 he worked at a Law firm exclusively dedicated to civil cases for damages and environmental issues.
He was a member of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers of Patagonia from 2012 through 2015.
He has been incorporated to the firm in November 2015, and has supplemented his solid academic background in Environmental Law with actual follow up of Court and administrative cases.
He has published the article “El derecho al acceso a la información pública ambiental en Argentina bajo la interpretación de la Opinión Consultiva OC 23/17 de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos” [The justify to Access Public Environmental Information in Argentina under Interpretation of the Advisory Opinion OC 23/17 of the Inter-American Court of Human justifys], Magazine El Derecho, Ed. 280, published in November 2018, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He is proficient in English and has an intermediate level of French.
Eugenia Magnasco graduated as an Attorney-at-Law from the University of Buenos Aires in 2003. She holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Policy, Law and Management from the School of Government of Universidad Austral (2023) and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Public Policy at the same institution. She has completed postgraduate specialization studies in Natural Resources Law at the University of Buenos Aires and in the Legal Framework of Agribusiness at Universidad Austral, further complementing her academic background with international training programs in climate change, carbon markets, and green finance delivered by organizations such as UNDP, IDB, and JICA.
She has extensive professional experience in environmental law, climate change, and agro-environmental regulation. Since 2010, she has served as Legal Consultant to the Argentine Association of Regional Agricultural Experimentation Consortia (AACREA), advising on the interaction between agricultural production and environmental regulation, regulatory risk assessment, carbon footprint analysis, carbon markets, and international regulatory frameworks such as the European Union Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR). She has participated in strategic projects involving greenhouse gas inventories, mitigation potential assessments, and climate vulnerability analyses for national and international institutions.
She has acted as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), contributing to regional climate finance platforms and institutional strengthening projects across Latin America. She also participated in the preparation of Argentina’s Third National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and in the development of provincial integrated waste management strategies.
In the private sector, she has been involved in litigation and legal advisory matters related to agro-environmental issues, including preventive actions concerning agrochemical application, constitutional challenges to environmental levies and fees, defense in criminal proceedings involving alleged environmental contamination, and the design of integrated management systems for phytosanitary container waste.
She lectures in the Legal Framework of Agribusiness Program at Universidad Austral and is the author of numerous publications on environmental law, climate change, and agro-industrial regulation, with articles published in Microjuris, La Ley, Revista Jurídica de Agronegocios, and other specialized journals.
Her professional profile combines regulatory analysis, public policy formulation, and applied legal practice, enabling her to address environmental conflicts from a technical, regulatory, and strategic perspective.
She is proficient in English and has an intermediate level of French.
Ms. Carolina Guantay earned her Law Degree with honors from the University of Buenos Aires in 2019. She specialized in Private, Criminal, Administrative, and Public International Law.
She worked as attorney at a Law Firm, in the Tort Claims area, which helped her acquire early experience in the management of an extensive case portfolio.
She was incorporated to the Environmental Conflict area of our firm in 2020.
She is proficient in English and has an intermediate level of French.
Ms. Maria Victoria Gamba graduated as a lawyer from the University Chatolic of Salta in March 2020.
During the years 2018 and 2019 she worked in a Notarial Registry of the city of Salta, closely related to mining and corporate activity.
In 2020, she completed a postgraduate degree in Notarial Law at the University of Salvador and a Diploma in Environmental Management at the National Technological University.
She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Environmental Policy, Law and Management at the Universidad Austral.
She joined the Environmental Law Advise area in November 2020.
She is fluent in English and has knowledge of Italian.
Ms. Sofía Rallé Bouhid earned her Law Degree from the Católica Argentina University in September 2021. She chose the optative subjet Environmental Law.
She worked as an intern at Marval O’farrell Mairal law firm in the litigation area during 2019.
She was incorporated to the Environmental Law Advise Area of our Firm in April 2022.
Sofia is currently attending a Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Law at the University of Buenos Aires.
She is proficient in English.
Bárbara Carolina Antonio graduated as an Attorney-at-Law from the University of Buenos Aires School of Law in 2023, with a concentration in Public International Law, Human Rights, Environmental Law, and Gender Studies. She is also a Sworn Public Translator of English from the same institution (2020) and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Gender Studies.
She practices in the areas of environmental legal consulting and occupational health and safety compliance, participating in litigation monitoring, administrative defense proceedings, preparation and updating of regulatory compliance matrices, and the performance of internal audits. She previously completed her professional internship at FARN’s Legal Clinic, where she contributed to legal drafting, case monitoring, environmental litigation, and environmental research at the local and regional levels.
She has experience in the public sector, having served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, where she was involved in the processing of administrative files and drafting of official documents. In parallel, she works as an independent sworn translator, providing legal, economic, and technical translations.
She serves as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Buenos Aires School of Law in the chair of Dr. María Blanca Noodt Taquela. She has presented at International Law conferences and has published on civil liability for environmental damage and private international law. She received an honorary mention in recognition of her research work.
She has completed continuing education courses in environmental and climate criminal law, environmental impact assessment, integrated waste management, and integrated management systems, consolidating an interdisciplinary technical background in environmental and regulatory law.
He is proficient in English and has an intermediate level of other languages.
Sofía Galdos graduated with honors from the University of Buenos Aires in 2024,
having completed her professional internship at the Environment and Natural
Resources Foundation (FARN) between 2023 and 2024.
She worked as a legal assistant at a law firm, focusing on Civil, Commercial, and
Labor Law. In 2024, she joined the firm’s Environmental Disputes practice area.
She is fluent in English.
Iara Milagros Villarreal graduated as an Attorney-at-Law from Universidad del Salvador in 2025. From the outset of her academic training, she focused her interest on Environmental Law and interdisciplinary studies related to water law and natural resources.
She serves as a lecturer at the Faculty of Legal Sciences of Universidad del Salvador in the course “Research Methodology.” She is also a member of the Water and Environment Research Program at the same Faculty, participating in projects jointly developed with CONICET and contributing to academic and specialized outreach activities.
During her university studies, she participated in national and international academic initiatives in environmental law, including the International Environmental Negotiation Competition organized by the University of Buenos Aires, where she received a special distinction for research and negotiation in international environmental law. She has also participated as a speaker in legal research conferences and international academic collaboration programs.
She was awarded the Academic Excellence Prize by the Young Lawyers Committee of the Buenos Aires City Bar Association, granted to the highest GPA graduates of her class.
Her profile combines solid legal training, academic vocation, and commitment to contemporary environmental challenges, contributing an ethical and collaborative perspective to the analysis of regulatory and environmental conflicts.
She is fluent in English.
Francis Guerra Machuca graduated as an Attorney-at-Law from the University of Buenos Aires in 2025, with a concentration in Business Law. She holds a Technical Degree in Computer Science from Technical School No. 29 “Reconquista de Buenos Aires.”
She has been a member of Estudio Gabriel Macchiavello since 2019. She currently practices in litigation and advisory matters, participating in judicial proceedings and in preventive legal analysis for clients in environmental and regulatory matters.
During her professional training, she completed internships at the firm, contributing to legal research, drafting of pleadings, case monitoring, and administrative filings, as well as collaborating in the design of procedural strategies.
She is fluent in English.
Bautista del Longo graduated as an Attorney-at-Law from the University of Buenos Aires in 2025. From the beginning of his academic training, he oriented his interests toward regulatory analysis and procedural law practice.
He joined Estudio Gabriel Macchiavello in 2024, where he participates in litigation and legal advisory matters, including the drafting of judicial pleadings, case law analysis, and monitoring of administrative and judicial proceedings. His work includes preparing complaints, answers to claims, defenses, and submissions before public authorities.
Previously, he served as an Associate Legal Assistant at Estudio Jurídico Del Longo & Asociados (2021–2024), gaining experience in court filings and comprehensive case management.
He has experience in legal audits, regulatory research, and the use of judicial electronic filing platforms (MEC, SCBA, and PJN).
She is fluent in English.