Pacheco Coto set to join EY in Central America

EY and Pacheco Coto have announced that over 45 lawyers from the latter are set to join EY Law Central America on January 1st 2018. 

Pacheco Coto was founded in Costa Rica in 1939, and as of 2017, it has offices in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua as well as in Spain, Switzerland, New Zealand and Hong Kong. 

EY is a global firm with more than 250 thousand professionals, with presence in more than 150 countries. In Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic, EY has over 200 employees and 45 partners. 

The news of the integration broke over the weekend on local media in Costa Rica and market observers are closely following this development. 

When the move is completed in the new year, EY Tax & Law will be home to more than 280 professionals, including 155 attorneys across the CAFTA-DR countries and Panama. The development adds a stronger bench to EY´s already prominent legal arm in the region. EY has made its ambition to grow a legal offering in Central America quite clear, and earlier in 2017, it finalised the merger with its long term legal partners Integra Legal, adding lawyers in Costa Rica and Guatemala. 

Partners Hernán Pacheco, Alejandro Antillón, Fernando Vargas, Roberto Cordero in Costa Rica and Ruby Asturias in Guatemala are making the move to EY, according to the statements. Hernán Pacheco will lead the EY Law practice in close collaboration with Rafael Sayagués, the current managing partner of the tax and law practices of EY in the region.

“We like to innovate and lead disruption with creative solutions for our clients and communities. Our purpose is to create the most successful legal and professional services firm in the region and today we reaffirm this objective by incorporating the great talent of Pacheco Coto’s partners and attorneys,” said Sayagués in the note. 

 “This integration represents an evolution to strengthen the rendering of services and to respond to market trends where value added services, innovation, multi-disciplinary services and regionalisation are of particular relevance. The synergies of the two groups consolidate this premise and we are convinced that this formula will bring great benefits to our clients and will revolutionise the services’ market in the region, through the emergence of a mega legal services’ firm with global projection. We also see this as a great opportunity for the professional growth and projection of our lawyers”, said Hernán Pacheco, current senior partner at Pacheco Coto.

 The Latin American Lawyer has updated the story to include information from the statements issued by both EY and Pacheco Coto.