Dentons has launched a combination with Rattagan Macchiavello Arocena in Argentina as it continues to expand in Latin America and the Caribbean despite the challenges presented by COVID-19.

The addition makes Dentons the largest global firm in Argentina, the firm said, and gives it more offices in Latin America and the Caribbean than any other law firm. Across the region, Dentons now has a presence in 24 countries.

In April, Dentons merged with Jiménez de Aréchaga, Viana & Brause in Uruguay. Last year, the firm merged with Honduras-based Gustavo Zacapa y Asociados following tie-ups in Venezuela and Chile.

The CEO of Dentons' Latin America and the Caribbean region, Jorge Alers, said that Rattagan Macchiavello Arocena stood out within Argentina for its leadership and innovative, forward thinking.

The Argentine firm is a leader in such practice areas as corporate and mergers and acquisitions, energy, environment and natural resources, banking and finance, compliance and anti-corruption, government relations, infrastructure, labor law, litigation and dispute resolution, pharmaceuticals and tax.

Dentons first announced plans for the Argentina office in September, expanding on its 2016 entry into Latin America and the Caribbean.

But Argentina faces a tough economic outlook as it flirts with a third default in two decades. The country has also adopted one of the strictest quarantines in Latin America in an effort to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The South American country's proposal to restructure $65 billion of its foreign debt expires May 8, with Argentine officials having indicated its proposal is a take-it-or-leave-it offer. Wary creditors have already rejected a prior offer.

Meanwhile, the country also faces a $2.1 billion payment to the Paris Club group of lenders this month and the end of a grace period for paying $500 million in interest on three dollar bonds.

The International Monetary Fund projected in April that Argentina's economy will contract by 5.7% in 2020 as the coronavirus dims an already bleak prospect for the grain-exporting nation. Within South America, only crisis-wracked Venezuela and Ecuador have dimmer forecasts among major economies that the IMF monitors.

So far in 2020, Dentons has launched Dentons Bingham Greenebaum and Dentons Cohen & Grigsby to form a national law firm in the United States as part of its "Project Golden Spike."

It also opened an office in St. Lucia and launched Dentons Kensington Swan in New Zealand, Dentons Lee in South Korea and Dentons Jiménez de Aréchaga in Uruguay, a major destination for wealth management, catering mostly to Argentines who have sought refuge from their country's chronic economic troubles and shifting fiscal policies.