About Our Practice
01
Experienced professionals
Each of our principals has more than a quarter century of law firm experience. With exposure to multiple practice areas, we have occupied senior leadership roles with command responsibility over multiple team members and streams of work. Our lawyers have been recognized in international legal publications like Chambers and Partners, the Legal 500 and Asia Business Law.
03
Competent efficiency
Our team has honed their oral advocacy and writing abilities through thousands of various engagements with different clients, counter-parties and regulators. We pride ourselves on our ability to analyze and reason efficiently - with an economy of thought and expert intuition - that means legal advice is rendered with precision and without waste of time.
02
Diversity of client exposure
We have counseled some of the largest Philippine and multinational corporations, over a broad scope of industries that include telecommunications, manufacturing, BPOs, mining, aerospace engineering, consumer goods, energy and retail. Our years of service have made us conversant with the culture, practices and business imperatives of MNCs and large corporates.
04
Commitment to expanding and sharing knowledge
With a conscious approach to continuous learning, our lawyers benefit from their work as educators in the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Santo Tomas. We share this passion for learning with our clients, conducting knowledge sessions on a range of topics that over the years have covered Contract Law, Copyright, Employment Law Fundamentals, and Negotiation.
Practice Areas
Corporate and Commercial Law
Mergers and Acquisitions
We provide a broad range of services on corporate and commercial law matters.
We advise clients in structuring investments and assist in establishing their presence in the Philippines through the registration of entities and application for appropriate licenses and permits to conduct business, and provide continuing legal assistance on regulatory compliance matters. Our practice also covers restructuring, dissolution, liquidation, and investment repatriation.
We regularly participate in various transactions such as acquisitions, divestments and joint ventures involving clients in various industries such as manufacturing, information technology, business process outsourcing, energy, and real property development. Our services include the preparation and negotiation of transaction documents and conduct of due diligence reviews, and assist in the closing and post-closing transaction requirements.
Our lawyers are well-versed in various special laws that may apply to transactions such as data privacy, intellectual property, environment, and competition regulations.
Employment and Human Capital
Labor Relations
Our firm’s lawyers have handled practically every possible legal issue arising from an employer-employee relationship.
We are familiar with the proceedings, contracts, regulatory friction, litigation and labor relations matters facing employers, having acted for them over the course of many years. We have represented large domestic enterprises and MNCs – many with workforces in the thousands – in a diverse range of employment-law related situations, including compulsory arbitration before the National Labor Relations Commission, and voluntary arbitration before VA panels; certification elections; labor inspections; and Occupational Safety and Health audits.
We take particular pride in our Labor Relations and Negotiation practice, having achieved favorable outcomes for our clients in collective bargaining negotiations, and by representing them in Preventive Mediation, Notice of Strike and Assumption-of-Jurisdiction proceedings before the National Conciliation and Mediation Board, and the Department of Labor and Employment.
Clients have also turned to us to help manage individual employee situations, such as those involving special laws covering workplace sexual harassment, US FCPA investigations, and high-level severance actions.
Our firm’s advisory work is always mindful of the human dimensions of these legal issues, and has covered some of the most difficult moments for an organization such as restructurings and layoffs. We have collaborated with client officers and external HR consultants, exploring various scenarios and offering legal insight on the most optimum and humane way to implement manpower rationalization goals.
Practice Areas
Dispute Resolution
Commercial Arbitration
Our firm is able to represent individual and corporate clients from a variety of industries. We handle civil, family, contract, property, criminal, corporate, commercial, administrative, environmental, labor and
intellectual property disputes before trial and appellate courts; quasi-judicial, administrative and regulatory bodies such as the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO); and alternative dispute resolution tribunals such as the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission (CIAC).
Our lawyers are seasoned litigators who draw from their extensive big-firm experience. But because of our highly specialized practice, we are able to provide each client with attentive and deeply personalized service, all towards the end of avoiding disruptive litigation through sound risk management and compliance advice, or where litigation is inevitable, ensure that the client’s legal interests are ably and zealously protected.
Our lawyers utilize a personal approach to service each client’s legal needs by acquiring a thorough understanding of the client’s priorities, and - leaning on their solid knowledge of the law and procedure - craft legal advice, and a dispute resolution strategy, which advances the client’s goals.
Intellectual Property
Trademark Enforcement
With experience in patent and trademark prosecution, as well as enforcement, our team has the ability and knowledge to support a client's IP law requirements.
One of our principals led multiple legal and non-legal staff handling a portfolio of thousands of Philippine patent and trademark registrations, coordinating filing and other requirements with foreign correspondents or in-house IP prosecution teams.
Another principal has litigated complex patent infringement issues before Philippine courts for domestic companies and multinationals. These have involved different types of invention patents, including for a modular wall system, a disposable diaper channelization design, and an "easy-tear" packaging laminate.
We have also helped clients pursue enforcement activity against trademark infringers and fake goods distributors, overseeing the process from search warrant application and enforcement raids, to criminal and civil protective action.