Roberto Silva: A transformative year for Capital Markets in Argentina
 

The president of the CNV outlines the challenges and achievements of his tenure, highlighting key reforms and Argentina’s reintegration into the international scene
 

On the eve of the completion of his first year as President of the National Securities Commission of Argentina, Latin Counsel had the opportunity to interview Roberto E. Silva, who shared with us the challenges he has faced, the pillars on which he has based his performance in this capacity, the main regulatory changes introduced by the CNV during the year 2024 and the achievements made in his international agenda, as part of the process of reintegrating Argentina into the international financial markets.   

Roberto Silva is a lawyer who graduated from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
He has worked as an academic at the Faculty of Law of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the Universidad Católica Argentina and in postgraduate masters programmes at the Universidad Austral, among others. He has also been featured frequently in publications on corporate lawyers, such as Chambers and Legal 500.

Prior to joining the CNV, he was a partner and member of the board of directors of Marval O’Farrell Mairal, where he worked from 1993 until his appointment to the CNV in early 2024.

Prior to that, he worked in other national law firms. Abroad, he worked for Shearman & Sterling (New York) from 1991 to 1992.

He was also Secretary of the Argentine Chamber of Trusts and Funds for Direct Investment in Productive Activities (CAFIDAP) from 2016 until his appointment to the CNV. He has also served as Chairman of the Banking Law Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA).

Roberto is a reference in the areas of capital markets, financing, trusts, banking law and exchange control, and is the author of several bibliographies on these topics.

Latin Counsel, through its correspondent in Argentina, corporate lawyer specialised in M&A transactions, international academic and author, Rodolfo G. Papa, had the opportunity to interview Roberto and ask him about the main challenges he has faced and the successes he has achieved (both locally and internationally) during his first year as head of the CNV.

Latin Counsel: After your extensive and distinguished practice as a leading lawyer advising and structuring banking and corporate finance transactions in Argentina, you took over the presidency of the National Securities Commission (CNV) (almost) a year ago. Could you tell us about the main challenges you have faced and the pillars on which you have based your first year in office?  

Roberto Silva: Taking over the presidency of such an important and prestigious body as the CNV is a challenge for anyone. Even more so in my case, as I come from the private sector. 

The CNV is an autonomous body, which means that in addition to regulating and managing it, it also has to be administered (which involves interacting with its human resources, systems, maintenance, approval of tenders and purchases, among other things). As part of this challenge, I have set out to provide management that is relevant, that strengthens our capital market and that simplifies operations.

For such a challenge, I needed to work with a great team, and I have it. I am accompanied by two great pillars, Patricia Boedo, Vice-President of the CNV, and Sonia Salvatierra, member of the Board of Directors.

During this first year of management, which is still ongoing, we have done a lot of work.

We have issued more than 40 General Resolutions (RG), approved new issues, innovatively promoted instruments proposed in laws and not yet regulated, revived the liaison tables with the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, ARCA (tax collection agency), the Financial Information Unit (’UIF’) (prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing) and the Inspectorate General of Justice (’IGJ’), and the Inspectorate General of Justice (’IGJ’), Inspección General de Justicia (’IGJ’) (companies), Superintendencia de Seguros de la Nación (’SSN’) (insurance), Procuraduría de Criminalidad Económica y Lavado de Activos (’PROCELAC’) (specialised economic crime prosecutors, specialised cybercrime prosecutors), among many others, as well as cooperation with various private sector entities. 

We solved the problem of the lack of vacancies for the Idóneos exam. We have put (and will continue to put) a lot of emphasis on financial education. We reintegrated Argentina into the international agenda, both in terms of regulations and participation in international organisations such as IOSCO/IOSCO (International Organisation of Securities Commissions), OECD/OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), IIMV (Ibero-American Institute of Securities Markets), FATF/FATF (Financial Action Task Force), among others. 

We knew that it would be a challenge to remove exchange restrictions in the capital market. Throughout the year, we worked in coordination with the Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank, and we partially removed obstacles and restrictions.

We have dealt with both the urgent and the important. We worked on all the urgent matters, which were not few. We can highlight the regularisation of assets promoted by the national government, a regulation that must involve the capital market. But we have also worked hard on what is important, that is to say, regulations that have to do with the present, but also with the future. Among these, we can mention the General Resolution that regulates the treatment of a ’private offer’ (RG CNV 1016), the automatic offer, ’T+1’, the regulation of PSAVs (Virtual Asset Service Providers), among others.

LC: As a result of your leadership at the CNV, more than 40 General Resolutions have been approved this year, in the drafting of which the main ’actors’ and professional organisations of the private sector have had a wide (and active) participation. Could you tell us which were the most important regulatory reforms approved by the CNV Board?

Roberto: Our policy has always been "open doors". We want to work with the market, not ’against’ it. That is why we have met with many people. We always try to listen, understand and then regulate.

An important part of our policy is to remove all unnecessary barriers. So far, we have adopted 43 general resolutions.

Whenever we could, and there was no urgency, we have called for public consultation to sanction regulations.  We have already managed to put 6 General Resolutions out for public consultation and we currently have 3 GRs in consultation.  In each case, we have presented the regulation in a face-to-face meeting to explain the objectives of the regulation to market participants and to listen to their contributions.  Our aim is always to put in place the best possible standard.
 
Among the most important standards, there are undoubtedly some that we consider to be the milestones of our management. 

Among these are: the regulation of ’Virtual Asset Service Providers’ (VASPs), following the enactment of Law 27.739, which amended the Money Laundering Law and made the CNV responsible for the registration and supervision of VASPs, which became ’Regulated Entities’ for the purposes of the Money Laundering Prevention Regulations. This was (and still is) an enormous challenge. 

The regulation of private offerings, including employee and offshore offerings, using, for the first time in Argentina, a ’safe harbour’ mechanism (RG 1009, the public consultation, and RG 1016, the final). 

Also the regulation of public offerings with automatic approval. We are deregulating the procedures for: (i) public offers with automatic approval due to their "low impact", (ii) public offers with automatic approval due to their "medium impact" and (iii) auctions.  Similarly, we have made the common investment funds (CIFs) of art. 7 bis (they invest in indices, external assets or with little diversification).

At the same time, there are very important things to highlight, such as the fact that we have changed the settlement period to T+1, at the same time as the US markets and the rest of North America (RG 1000 and 1029).  Europe is only now proposing this.  Other important reforms include the introduction of the "hard dollar" promissory note, which has opened up new financing options; the adaptation of the regulatory framework for privatised companies; the removal of the obstacle of having to register as a company in Argentina in order to maintain a double listing, among others.

LC: Your tenure at the CNV has also been marked by an active presence in international forums, particularly IOSCO (International Organisation of Securities Commissions), but also the OECD and FATF, where Argentina’s situation was critical prior to the current administration of President Milei. Could you share with us the main achievements of the CNV during 2024?

Roberto: One of our objectives is the reintegration of Argentina into the world markets, with which we have had a very broad participation in the international agenda, including the return to occupy positions that had been lost and to participate actively.  We have made many trips in connection with IOSCO/IOCV, IIMV, OECD/OECD, FATF/FATF, IADB and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), among others.  We have represented Argentina in numerous compliance forums, with the aim of reintegrating ourselves into the world.

In this regard, this year we regained positions that had been occupied in the past.  In March, I was elected by my colleagues in the region to be the Board Representative for the IARC (Americas Regional Committee), one of the committees of IOSCO 2024-2026.  I was also elected as a member of the FintechLAC Executive Committee.

Argentina is actively working to join the OECD/OECD, and although this is an issue coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, in economic matters the CNV participates in everything related to corporate governance. 

I would like to point out that during the mission to the FATF, during the 4th round of evaluation, which in the end avoided being "relegated" to the "grey list", the CNV had to explain the issue of dollarisation through the capital market and PSAVs. It was a hard joint effort by many agencies, successfully led by Ambassador Eugenio Curia, which culminated in an excellent result for the country. For those in the know, I like to say that it was like ’winning a World Cup in Paris’.

LC: What will be the main objectives and actions to be achieved in your administration in the next year 2025? 

Roberto: To tell you the objectives for 2025, I like to divide the working agenda into short, medium and long term. 

The short-term agenda is made up of the actions I have already mentioned, and above all the urgent ones.  The medium-term agenda consists mainly of continuing Argentina’s integration into the international agenda and aligning our regulations with international regulations, with many challenges still to be met.

Another objective that we are very interested in for next year is to have a tokenisation regime, as well as to work on the development of pension funds.

Finally, the long-term agenda is the development of capital markets, but this depends to a large extent on continued macroeconomic stabilisation. 

We would like to continue to work on the financing of real estate projects through the capital market and to continue to help create institutional investors, such as the ’severance fund’. We must also continue to look at this new phenomenon, which is the growth of the capital market through virtual wallets.

I would like to stress that we are working hard on communication. Mainly through LinkedIn, the CNV website and social networks. This is where we communicate and explain not only the regulations we issue, but also the activities we carry out and participate in.

Finally, we will have many challenges in the regulation of PSAVs and their supervision.

We hope to be able to continue to take steps towards the lifting of exchange restrictions in the capital markets.

We intend to accompany the processes, innovation and deregulation of this era, to remove obstacles, to be efficient and, only if necessary, to impose new regulatory frameworks.

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