PLMJ shortlisted once again in The Lawyer European Awards for Law Firm of the Year: Iberia

PLMJ is the only Portuguese firm to have won the Law Firm of the Year: Iberia award twice and the only one to be shortlisted for advising on the European banking and finance deal of the year

In the year in which PLMJ marks its 50^th anniversary, Portugal’s largest law firm, which is also present in Portuguese-speaking Africa, has again been shortlisted for the Law Firm of the Year: Iberia award at The Lawyer European Awards 2017. These awards are given annually by the prestigious London legal publication, The Lawyer. PLMJ has already won this award twice, in 2015 and 2012, and it is the only Portuguese law firm to have achieved this double recognition.

Besides this first award, PLMJ has also been shortlisted for the legal advice it provided in one of the candidates for European banking and finance deal of the year. The deal in question is the sale of Barclays’ Portuguese operations to the Spanish bank, Bankinter. The PLMJ team, led by partner Hugo Rosa Ferreira, was responsible for structuring and implementing the legal solution for this operation in Portugal.

For PLMJ managing partner, Luís Pais Antunes, “PLMJ’s nominations for “Law firm of the year: Iberia” and “European banking and finance deal of the year” in The Lawyer European Awards 2017 strengthens our position among the most recognised law firms on the European level. This international recognition has a special meaning for us, because it has come in the year when we celebrate our 50^th anniversary. It is a great incentive for us to be even more ambitious in the excellence, rigour and innovation of the services we provide to our clients.”

This recognition by The Lawyer is the fruit not only of the work done by PLMJ’s lawyers in 2016 in advising on the main operations and projects taking place in Portugal, but also of their work on cross-border operations. These cross-border operations involved Angola, Mozambique, China and Switzerland, among others, and legal areas including M&A, private equity, arbitration, real estate and construction, and banking and finance. PLMJ’s appearance on the two shortlists is also a reflection of the steps it has taken to significantly strengthen its principal teams. These steps include the lateral hiring of Diogo Perestrelo and his team (PLMJ M&A), Bruno Ferreira (PLMJ Banking and Finance), and João Velez de Lima and Francisco Castro Guedes (PLMJ Tax).

Being shortlisted in The Lawyer European Awards is due not only to the work of the firm in service of its clients, but also to the renewed capacity PLMJ has demonstrated in managing a team that brings together 290 lawyers on three continents. PLMJ is no stranger the “Law Firm of the Year: Iberia” award, which it won previously in 2015 and 2012. In addition, at the awards ceremony in 2011, PLMJ founding partner, Luís Sáragga Leal, was named best managing partner in Europe.

The magazine The Lawyer carries out its assessment of the European legal profession on an annual basis and rewards the work of the leading independent and global law firms that operate in the main European markets.