ECIJA opens in Brazil and Ecuador
Five months after its entry into Mexico, Spanish law firm ECIJA is continuing its expansion strategy in Latin America with the integration of Brazilian firm CTA and Ecuadorian firm GP&A.
Hugo Écija (pictured, top), founder and executive president at ECIJA, explained that these integrations respond to the firm’s responsibility to offer global services:
“ECIJA not only reinforces its presence in Latin America, but also gives a remarkable impulse to its energy and natural resources practice, hand in hand with two leading firms in this field,” he said.
“This new milestone responds to ECIJA’s expansion plan, which includes the incorporation of practice areas, territories and professionals.”
He said the firm now has 119 partners and more than 600 professionals globally, while reinforcing its role as a hub between Latin America, Iberia and Asia, where ECIJA has an important joint venture with Grandall Law, one of the five largest firms in China.
Both the firms being incorporated are recognised in international directories for their leadership in their respective jurisdictions, ECIJA said in a press release.
With this move, ECIJA consolidates its full-service vocation at international level, adding four new offices in Latin America, located in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Quito and Guayaquil.
Along with the two new firms, ECIJA is adding 25 new partners and more than 100 new professionals to its worldwide team.
As a result of the mergers, ECIJA reinforces its position as the largest Spanish firm in Latin America, with a presence in 13 countries and 16 offices in the region. The new integrations also lead ECIJA to strengthen a key practice area in the region, energy and natural resources, with a special focus on oil and gas.
After years of accompanying its clients in Brazil through the collaboration with different local firms, ECIJA is now taking a step forward in this task, by integrating the Brazilian firm CTA into its structure and opening offices in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
ECIJA’s new firm in Brazil, composed of a team of 15 partners and more than 60 professionals, is the result of the recent merger of local firms, leaders in their respective practice areas, as indicated by the international directories Chambers & Partners and Legal 500, as well as the main ranking of firms in Brazil by Análise Editorial.
The firm will bring together professionals with extensive experience in different areas, from the main practices such as commercial, labour and tax, to specific industries such as oil and gas, telecommunications, transport and logistics.
The new team of ECIJA in Brazil comprises partners Marcos Andre Vinhas Catão (partner director, pictured left), Bruno Tocantins, Rafael Pistono, Camila Machado, Guilherme Köpfer, Renata Larichia, Thutia Bernardo, Fernanda Mendes, Cecília Cunha, Margareth Kang, Maria Luciana Souza, Renata Borges, Verônica Souza, Gabriel Corbage and Raphael Dutra.
Marcos Andre Vinhas Catão, managing partner at ECIJA in Brazil, expressed his satisfaction with the firm’s integration into ECIJA, saying, “it is a great opportunity for us to become part of a modern firm, leader in digital economy, with a clear vocation for growth and with such a relevant presence in the Latin American market.”
“Between 2020 and 2030, Brazil will be the No. 2 country in terms of foreign investment in the oil and gas sector, only behind the US. Among the main investors in the sector, European companies stand out, where Spanish ones occupy an interesting percentage,” he said.
Likewise, ECIJA enters the Ecuadorian market by integrating the firm GP&A González – Peñaherrera & Asociados Abogados.
ECIJA’s new firm in Ecuador stands out for its local leadership since 1997, where its high competence as a multidisciplinary firm with high specialization in the energy sector has been recognized by the Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 directories. The firm also stands out in the areas of Corporate M&A, Tax, Labour, Public and Regulatory Law, as well as Competition Law.
ECIJA’s new team in Ecuador will consist of 10 partners: eight in the Quito office: Francisco Alarcón, Simón Davalos, Blanca Gómez de la Torre, Felipe González Karolys, Gonzalo González (pictured, below), Juan Carlos Montenegro, Paola Rabalino and Michael Veitimilla, and two in the Guayaquil office; Edgar Méndez and Byron Sotomayor.
A team of 45 other professionals has also joined this group of partners.
Gonzalo González, founding partner and general manager at ECIJA in Ecuador, has expressed his satisfaction with the integration, highlighting the great opportunity for his clients to have access to a homogeneous and quality service in the main Latin American countries. He also highlighted how Ecuador is going through a strategic moment to attract foreign investment, which will also be beneficial for the firm’s clients.
“Since 2017, the Ecuadorian government has established an active policy aimed at attracting foreign investment, and now more than ever, in view of the economic situation caused by COVID-19, a structural reform is needed to open up to foreign and national investment, which would certainly receive a positive response and awaken interest in Spanish companies,” he said.
“Currently, some 150 Spanish companies are established in the country, with investments of $1.5 billion in sectors such as telecommunications and energy. Ecuador is a country with a great opportunity for development in areas such as renewable energies, new technologies, cyber security, data protection, among others, without neglecting the main source of its economy: the development of hydrocarbons.”
