Héctor M. Huici joined the Regulatory and Administrative Law and Telecommunications departments of our law firm in January 2004.
Mr. Huici graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires (1989) and completed a Master degree in Administrative Law at Universidad Austral (1991-1992). He received a scholarship from Fundación Universitaria del Río de la Plata in 1987, 1989, 1992 and 1993 taking part in the Junior Group and being guest at the Universities of Denver, USA; Granada, Spain; Leiden, The Netherlands and Wisconsin, USA.
Before joining our firm, Mr. Huici worked for the National Telecommunications Commission from 1992 to 1996, where he served as General Counsel (1993/94) and counsel to the President of the National Telecommunication Commission (1995/1996). During his tenure, he was in charge of the evaluation of policies and the preparation of proposals of regulatory resolutions in different projects (among them, bid to grant mobile telephone licenses; drafting of regulations for telephone users, quality of the telephone service, licenses and interconnection); bid for the granting of PCS licenses, negotiation before the WTO regarding basic telecommunications additional protocol; bid for the spectrum for trunking services and dispute´s resolution among telecommunications service suppliers.
In 1997, Mr. Huici was hired by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as an expert to advise the Argentine Government, particularly in relation to competition policies in the telecommunications market.
On the private sector (1996-present) he has counseled telecommunication companies regarding different regulatory issues before the Telecommunications Secretariat and the National Communication Commission. In addition, Mr. Huici advised companies in the negotiation of interconnection agreements and other kind of agreements between providers of telecommunication services and litigation processes between such providers and the regulatory authorities, as well as in telecommunications due diligence processes.
Mr. Huici’s extensive experience in regulations of public utility services does not only include telecommunications, since he was legal also counsel to the Energy Secretariat (1993/95 and 1997/99).
In the private sector (1996-present) Mr. Huici continued with his practice in energy. He regularly counsels companies related to the gas industry, power generation and commercialization as well as electricity distributors, regarding regulatory, contractual and litigation issues. He has been particularly involved in the last years in advising local and foreign companies (in particular Chilean buyers of gas and Argentine exporters of electricity) regarding the conflicts generated due to the so-called “Gas crisis” that has affected the energy market in Argentina from 2004 on. He actively participated in the re-negotiation of contracts, swaps of energy and dispute negotiations between gas and power producers and its clients.
Mr. Huici actively participated in merger notices before the Antitrust Commission involving regulated utilities.
Mr. Huici is a member of Colegio de Abogados de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and was its treasurer (1999-2001) and its general secretary (2007-2011) as well; Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal of which he is the current president of the assembly; Asociación del Derecho de las Telecomunicaciones (member of the Executive Committee); Board of Directors of Universidad de Buenos Aires School of Law (1999-2003, representing graduates) and Fundación Universitaria del Río de la Plata (Consulting Committee).
Since 1990, Mr. Huici served as professor of administrative law, economic regulation and public utilities services at several public and private universities. Mr. Huici has lectured at several conferences at important universities and institutions, and attended seminars both in the country and abroad. Mr. Huici wrote several works published by La Ley, Lexis Nexis, Revista del Colegio de Abogados de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Revista Argentina de Derecho Administrativo, Revista de la Administración Pública, El Derecho, Anuario de la Universidad Austral, Asociación Argentina del Derecho de las Telecomunicaciones, Revista del Instituto del Derecho de las Comunicaciones, Diario INFOBAE and El Cronista Comercial, among others.