The global law firm Jones Day has announced that it has opened an office in São Paulo, Brazil. This will be the Firm’s second office in Latin America after Mexico City.
The office will operate as a foreign legal consultancy, as required by the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), and has already obtained all regulatory approvals. Jones Day opens its own office, with no association or alliance with any local law firm.
Jones Day São Paulo will focus on supporting global clients with inbound investments into Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, working together with the best local independent firms, as well as providing legal counsel to Brazilian companies in their international operations. The São Paulo Office will concentrate on cross-border M&A, private equity, banking and finance, and project finance/infrastructure transactions, as well as energy and capital markets.
“Brazil is a dynamic, expanding economy, and one of the world’s key emerging markets,” said Stephen J. Brogan, Managing Partner of Jones Day. “It is a significant commodity producer, a world leader in energy, and home to some of the most important worldwide infrastructure projects undertaken in recent years. With Latin America’s largest and deepest stock market, massive inbound investment, and soon-to-be-massive outbound investment, Brazil has been identified by many clients as central to their global strategy. It is the biggest market in the world where Jones Day does not have a presence, and its importance will only increase in future years, making Brazil an ever more important economy for our clients.”
Luis Riesgo, Chair of the Latin American practice, has moved to São Paulo to serve as Partner-in-Charge of the new office. Mr. Riesgo, who served as Partner-in-Charge of Jones Day’s Madrid Office for the last five years, is ranked by Chambers as a leading lawyer in Latin America in Corporate/M&A, and was recently identified as one of the top 30 foreign lawyers in Latin America by Latin Business Chronicle. “We feel that having a physical presence in Brazil would allow us better to serve our clients,” said Mr. Riesgo. “My relocation to São Paulo underscores Jones Day’s commitment to serve them in Brazil and Latin America.”
Mr. Riesgo will be joined in São Paulo by Sanjiv Kapur and S. Wade Angus, corporate partners in Cleveland and New York respectively, each with extensive experience working with clients on transactions in Brazil and throughout Latin America. They have developed a practice that includes mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, infrastructure, mining and energy transactions, pharmaceutical, technology outsourcing, and other strategic alliances, as well as banking and finance and capital markets. All of them have been admitted as consultants on foreign law in São Paulo.
Jones Day, which will run its Latin America practice from Brazil, has represented clients in the region for decades, and is among the very few law firms that will have offices in São Paulo, Mexico City, New York, Madrid, and the other U.S. and European business and finance hubs, along with the centers of business and finance in Asia.
