SPS - Sociedade de Advogados

Corporate, Commercial and M&A / Employment & Labour

Partner and Co-Founder

Partner and co-founder at SPS Law Firm (1989).   In-house lawyer at the Legal Department of Nestlé Portugal from 1992 to 1994. Member of ALFA International Legal Network, he is actively engaged in the ALFA European Labour and Employment Group and in the ALFA European Corporate and Commercial Group.

He advice mainly on Corporate and Commercial, Labour and Litigation.

He is the led partner for the Corporate and Commercial Team, and for the Labour Team. He also coordinates, along with his peers, the Legal Litigation Center.

More than 30 years of experience as lawyer representing Companies in several economic field's such as banking and finance, automotive, industry, life sciences, retail, media and sports.

Through his career, Manuel Prates gained reputation as a skillful and balanced negotiator, successfully handling several high sensitive an risk deals, in corporate, litigation and labour, including collective dismissals with several unions including the Press Union.

In 2015 Manuel Prates lead a team of lawyers who represented Peugeot Citroen in a high profile collective dismissal that received some negative media exposure and that, nevertheless, was successfully concluded without one single litigation action from the affected workers.

Experience highlights also include advising several multinational companies implementing secondment or expatriation agreements (avenant d’expatriation) helping international clients to comply with Portuguese legislation, negotiating Termination Agreement’s for Agency representation under the 1978 Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Agency and handling transfer of undertaking in cross border transactions assessing the consequences for both the transfer and the transferee under the EU Directive on Transfer of Undertakings.

His experience includes advising several multinational companies supporting international clients in accordance with Portuguese legislation and in cross-border operations.

Portuguese, English, French, Spanish

Portuguese Bar Association

ALFA International Global Legal Network

Portuguese Association of Franchise - Legal advisor

Tax Committee of Ronald McDonald’s Children Foundation - Board member

He holds an MMBA from Indeg Business School – ISCTE (2006) and a Law degree from the University of Lisbon Law School (1989).