Biography
Mabel Ahumada is a Partner at FerradaNehme, one of Chile's leading law firms, where she heads the Competition and Economic Regulation practice. She is consistently ranked by Chambers Latin America (Band 5, Competition/Antitrust, 2025–2026), where market sources highlight her "structured work product, excellent responsiveness, and deep understanding of client priorities."
Her practice sits at the intersection of competition law and transactional work, making her a key advisor for M&A operations requiring antitrust clearance in Chile and across Latin America. She advises clients across regulated and non-regulated markets, having a broad vision of the different markets and anti-competitive behavior. In particular, she has wide experience in merger control filings, competition risk assessments in the context of corporate transactions, and post-merger compliance.
Before joining private practice, Mabel spent several years at the Chilean Competition Authority (FNE), where she held positions in both the Antitrust Division and the Mergers Division, ultimately becoming Deputy Chief of the latter. In that role, she was directly involved in the design and implementation of Chile's mandatory merger control regime (the system that has governed all significant corporate concentrations in the country since 2017). This background gives her an unusually authoritative perspective on the practical workings of merger review in Chile, including the FNE's analytical frameworks, procedural expectations, and enforcement priorities.
Before joining FerradaNehme, she also worked in other law firms, always focused on the Competition area, as well as complementary areas such as Dispute Resolution.
Mabel holds a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she graduated with maximum distinction and received the Premio José Tocornal y Pedro Montenegro (the highest academic distinction awarded by the UC Faculty of Law to the best student of each graduating class). She earned an LL.M. in Competition Law from King's College London (United Kingdom) and holds postgraduate diplomas in Electricity Sector Regulation from the Universidad de Chile and in Neuropsychology and Neuropsychiatry from a joint program of the Universidad de Chile and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. From 2019 to 2020, she served as a professor of Competition Law at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.
Languages: Spanish and English