16 Dic 2021 has been a year of success for IUS+AEQUITAS´s clients and team
2021 has been a year of success for Ius+Aequitas client´s and team, in which we have jointly achieved important accomplishments not only from a legal perspective, but also in terms of team and corporate image.
First of all, the Ius+Aequitas family has grown with the incorporation of three new lawyers to the Criminal Law, Litigation, and Insolvency & Restructuring departments. Particularly noteworthy is the signing of Elena López Sánchez, a highly-skilled bankruptcy manager with extensive experience at international level, who comes to reinforce an area in which the firm already has significant recognition for its intervention as Bankruptcy Manager in numerous relevant insolvency proceedings (Dentix, Ausbanc, Vertice 360º, BQ Mobile Group, Supermercados Gigante, among others).
This growth has led us to move to larger and more comfortable premises where, without renouncing our essence, we can continue to strive for excellence in the defense of our clients’ interests.
The change of headquarters is also a step forward and upwards (in the most literal sense of the expression) for Ius+Aequitas, that we all face with great enthusiasm and with the Firm’s commitment to turn a mere office into our second home.
Furthermore, the Firm’s image has undergone an evolution that combines our tradition as litigation lawyers with the international environment in which we are increasingly operating. With this objective in mind, we officially adopted in January the nickname Trial Lawyers, as an additional way of projecting our image beyond our borders, without forgetting the road we have travelled for so many years hand by hand with our clients.
On the other hand, thanks to the hard work of our teams and the trust of our clients and collagues, IUS+AEQUITAS has obtained results that have earned us recognition by the main international legal rankings and directories. In Dispute Resolution, Chambers and Partners has recognized the Firm (Band 4) and our Managing Partner Eliseo M. Martínez (Band 5), both at European and Global level. Legal 500 has also ranked the Firm in the categories White Collar Crime (Tier 3) and Dispute Resolution (Tier 4). In the same vein, Leaders League featured the Firm in International Arbitration (Highly Recommended) and White-Collar Crime (Recommended). Best Lawyers, for its part, highlighted the work of all of our partners: Eliseo M. Martínez (Criminal Defense); Justo Trashorras (Insolvency & Reorganization); Tomás Villatoro (Arbitration and Mediation); Carlos López-Mélida (Competition and Antitrust); Pablo Martínez (Insolvency & Reorganization, and Labor & Employment); and also that of our senior lawyer Luis M. Manso, as One to watch, in Litigation.
Regarding our historical commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, we were proudly once again sponsors of the awards Optimistas Comprometidos, in the Freedom of Expression category. The awards are organized annually by Anoche Tuve Un Sueño (the first European media outlet to obtain the BCORP certificate), members of the United Nations Global Compact. Not settling for it, we went a step further, granting a university scholarship to a Kenian youngster that now has the opportunity to attend university and fulfil his dream of studying Law and helping his family and society prosper towards justice.
In addition to the above, we believe it is worth to mention some of the main professional achievements of our firm in 2021, specifically:
- Ius+Aequitashas been appointed as Bankruptcy Manager for some of the most relevant Insolvency proceedings in Spain, namely: BQ Mobile Group, Natural Mining Resources 1927, and the Dentix group, among others.
- The consolidation and growth of our international client portfolio, which already constitutes a very representative percentage of the new matters of the Firm and which has allowed us to work in different jurisdictions such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Italy, France, Switzerland, China or Vietnam.
- We have achieved an important judgment for the plaintiff in defense of landlords of holiday homes in Palma de Mallorca, one of the main tourist destinations in Spain, lifting the ban on the commercialization of apartments for holidays purposes imposed by the city council.
- We have filed an appeal before the European Court of Human Rights seeking the protection of the right to own property of a client who was prevented by the Public Administration from developing an initially approved construction on a land of its property, that has caused the client millions of dollars in damages. This appeal is innovating from a legal perspective since a judgement reversing the national court’s decision would protect the right to own property of any citizen in case of arbitrary indirect deprivation of property by the Public Administration, which would be obliged to compensate the client for such deprivation in accordance with the real value of the damage caused.
- Our client the victim´s association “Plataforma de Perjudicados por Abengoa” also achieved the indictment of the former President and the former Financial Director of a well-known company dedicated to the renewable energy sector in Spain and the former General Director of one of its subsidiaries, for the alleged offences of falsifying financial statements of the Group of companies in relation to the “AVE to Mecca” (“Ave a la Meca”) Project.
- The Firm is also leading the private prosecution on behalf of one of the most important banks in Southern Spain in a criminal proceeding against a businessman who took out a loan of several million euro, which he never repaid, to build a corporate structure in tax havens to evade the tax authorities.
- The Firm is also representing the leading American real estate broker “Carlton …” in a 90 million euro ancillary claim arising from the non-payment of a 3% commission on the sale price of the land where “Ciudad Financiera del Santander” is located, valued at 3,000 million euro.
To all of the above, it is worth adding our traditional dedication to professional improvement, highlighting that throughout the year we have participated in several seminars and events on the most trending issues in the legal, social and economic context. Particularly noteworthy was the participation of our Managing Partner Eliseo Martínez in the 38th symposium on economic crime organized by Cambridge: Economic crime – who pays and who should pay?, which he attended as guest speaker, as well as in the 65th UIA Congress, hosted by the Union Internationale des Advocats, where Eliseo, together with Pablo Martínez, participated as panelists in different sessions of the event.
Finally, once overcome the initial uncertainty, and having adapted to the global pandemic situation, we are confident that 2022 will follow the trend of 2021, and will be a year of intense activity and new challenges ahead for IUS+AEQUITAS and its team. We expect that mediation will definitively establish itself as a suitable alternative for the satisfactory and cost-effective resolution of disputes, in which the technological component -software, smart contracts, certified service providers, e-commerce- will play a key role presenting an excellent opportunity to explore new areas of practice in order to provide state-of-the-art services to our clients.
That is what we will bet on, and that is what we will work for. We look forward to sharing with our clients and friends a challenging 2022 under our Firm´s motto “excellence in litigation at the service of people, corporations and society”.
