Publicada matéria no Latin Lawyer online sobre a incorporação de Lanna Peixoto Advogados e a admissão do novo Sócio, Bruno Lanna Peixoto.
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Araújo e Policastro teams up with antitrust boutique
With Brazil’s new antitrust law scheduled to enter into force at the end of the month, Araújo e Policastro Advogados has absorbed competition law boutique Lanna Peixoto Advogados to help clients obtain approval from the country’s competition authorities prior to closing deals.
The merger became official at the beginning of the May, after negotiations that only began a month earlier, in order for Araújo e Policastro Advogados to be ready for the law that takes affect on 29 May. “It made sense to get it done as soon as possible in order to provide Araújo’s clients with the best advice,” says Bruno Peixoto, founding partner of Lanna Peixoto.
Under the current system, mergers do not have to be notified to the country’s antitrust authorities until they have already closed, which means that corporate and M&A partners in full-service firms are able to close deals and then hand them over to antitrust specialists. While many full-service firms have had, and continue to have, robust antitrust practices, passing the deal on to antitruste boutiques proved popular among some clients as, previously, speed has not been so critical a factor. But under Brazil’s new legislation, antitrust lawyers in full-service firms say they expect to see more work – and advise on more complex matters – now that antitrust advice must happen while a deal is being put together, rather than afterwards. (…) The need to strengthen existing antitrust practices in full service firms is in part also what motivated Araújo e Policastro, one of Brazil’s oldest and most traditional firms, to approach Peixoto. “Competition law has always been important here, but it’s become more so in view of the legislation just passed in the Brazilian Congress,” says partner Theodoro Araújo. Because of the need to file mergers and acquisitions with the antitrust agency before, he says “it’s more extensive work, and it will need to be done more efficiently by competition law specialists so that the transactions can be closed more rapidly.”
Araújo describes the hire as resulting from “a need to complete this area in our law firm”. The firm already maintained a working relationship with Peixoto, after collaborating with him on several deals. “We knew that Bruno was willing to join a larger law firm to expand his practice, as he was already assisting some very important international clients in Brazil and then he realised it would be important for him to have a larger and more traditional platform to be able to assist them,” Araújo says.
Peixoto began practising competition law 11 years ago and in 2005 founded his boutique firm, which includes competition litigation among its specialisms. He began looking for positions in full service firms as a result of the new legislation introducing a pre-merger notification system requiring clients to obtain approval from the antitrust authorities prior to closing deals. “It makes sense to work at a full servisse firm and to have the competition practice interplaying with the M&A and other practice groups,” he says.
Peixoto brings with him two associates, taking Araújo e Policastro’s competition department up to two partners and five associates in total. As head of the practice area, he will work on notification of cross-border M&A transactions to CADE, advising clients on potential anticompetitive conduct and in competition litigation cases. Araújo says that another part of Peixoto’s role will be “to establish a good team to work under his supervision,” adding that the firm is contemplating hiring a junior partner along with several associates to bolster the firm’s antitrust efforts in the coming months.
In addition to responding to the demands of new antitrust legislation, the firm is also embarking on expansion more generally. “Our present strategy is to expand the firm by hiring or incorporating law firms in several specialisations,” says Araújo. In February this year the firm absorbed specialist international trade firm Venturi Sociedade de Advogados to up its efforts in the practice area, which Araújo says stemmed from the fact that “Brazil is becoming one of the most important players in international trade”. In the same month, the firm also added a specialist in the financial markets, an area which Araújo says the firm is focussing on given the markets’ increasing importance and sophistication in Brazil.
Rachel Hall | Latin Lawyer | 11th May 2012