Pérez-Llorca has announced plans to open an office in Abu Dhabi later this year, in a move it says will make it the first Ibero-American law firm with a physical presence in the city.
The office will be located in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, one of the main international financial centres in the region, and is intended to support Gulf investors in overseas investment projects.
Pérez-Llorca said the planned launch was in response to developments in global capital flows, noting that Gulf-based institutional and private investors have been taking an increasingly significant role in financing and acquiring assets in the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America and Portuguese-speaking African countries.
The office will be led by partner Gonçalo Capela Godinho, the firm’s current country chair in Lisbon and a specialist in cross-border transactions. Capela Godinho has overseen the Lisbon office more than tripling in size to 60 people since its launch in late 2023 and in Abu Dhabi is expected to drive the development of institutional and commercial relationships in the region. Two associates will make the move with him to Abu Dhabi.
The office is not intended to develop a local legal practice in the Middle East, and instead is meant to strengthen Pérez-Llorca’s proximity to international capital sources that invest in markets where it has capacity to deliver local law advice, the firm said. It added the office will work closely with its teams in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Colombia, as well as with the Lusophone Africa practice coordinated from Lisbon.
The launch continues the firm’s international expansion drive that began in 2015 with office openings in London and New York and since 2022 has seen the firm open in Brussels, Singapore, Mexico and Colombia as well as Lisbon.
“We’re proud of everything we’re building internationally,” said Iván Delgado, Pérez-Llorca’s international executive partner. “We’re advancing faster than we expected in our strategy, and that drives us to continue growing our international presence so that we can continue to support our clients in their transactions, litigation and regulatory matters, while also helping our talent to develop in an international environment.”
The firm has created a new governance structure for its Lisbon office on account of its strong growth, naming banking and finance lawyer Carlos Vaz de Almeida as office managing partner and Inês Arruda and Adolfo Mesquita Nunes as country co-chairs.
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