Abe Advogados

Abe Advogados offers comprehensive and high-quality service across the primary areas of law. The firm strives to accompany clients throughout their business cycles and believes that proximity and partnership with clients help the delivery of tailor-made, innovative and tangible solutions.

The firm has a robust and complete structure to offer excellent technical legal services in a simple and speedy fashion so that clients can face the ever-changing business environment stemming from recent technologies and market dynamics.

The firm offers legal services to both companies and individuals on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, tax and labour law, strategic civil litigation, arbitration, real estate, and contracts. The offering also caters to the needs of individuals with regard to tax planning matters, succession planning, wealth planning, including mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance for family business groups and entrepreneurs from innovation companies.

In sync with the needs of each client, the firm acts with technical excellence and impeccable ethical values to provide a seamless approach to meeting clients’ needs and expectations.

With a multidisciplinary approach and business acumen, we are prepared to manage the most complex legal issues with diligence and represent a wide range of clients from various sectors.

We are headquartered in the city of São Paulo and work in cooperation with a network of firms throughout the country and abroad.

Areas of practice
M&A/corporate: The practice is engaged in complex domestic and cross-border transactions. We have extensive experience in corporate law and M&A transactions advising national and foreign companies, their partners or shareholders throughout the stages of the transactions, including post-closing in Brazil and abroad.

We combine legal experience with business acumen and focus on mergers and acquisitions and restructuring plans. As we evaluate agreements in every detail, we conduct risk analysis that extends far beyond contractual transaction issues.

Our team also advises on private equity and venture capital projects. The projects are structured in the most efficient formats using appropriate solutions to suit specific business needs.

Our firm advises on the purchase and sale of companies, and on the opening and closing stages preparing all necessary corporate documents. We also help our clients out with their everyday legal needs, preparation of minutes of meetings, shareholders’ agreements, and joint venture contracts.

Tax: Our tax team has in-depth knowledge of the complex Brazilian tax legislation and is fully prepared to advise clients on the mishmash of tax issues affecting business transactions. Acting in tax litigation and advisory matters, the team focuses on designing the best strategy to achieve the most significant results for clients.

The practice has a strong tax litigation team working on clients’ tax assessments and other matters related to liabilities and tax recovery. The firm is also seen as a trusted advisor guiding clients towards the most efficient tax performance in civil and commercial sales agreements, loans, and leasing transactions.

Our team has the required technical knowledge to act in sophisticated lawsuits and advise on transactional deals in partnership with our corporate and regulatory specialists when tax issues may represent a dealbreaker.

Strategic civil litigation and arbitration: We have built a successful track record in strategic litigation and arbitration matters, representing clients in several types of disputes before administrative bodies and courts. Working closely with clients, we understand their business and anticipate specific issues that may interfere in the unfolding of any dispute.

The practice specializes in issues related to commercial and civil law, such as business disputes, civil and administrative liability in general, including those arising from anti-corruption laws.

The firm advises investors and creditors on all matters related to companies in financial difficulties, in and out-of-court recovery, bankruptcy proceedings and debt restructuring.

Contracts: We offer our clients a multidisciplinary team with the necessary experience in the elaboration, negotiation and revision of the most diverse types of contracts.

We are specialized in the preparation and negotiation of contracts including the digital, e-commerce and intellectual property agreements and have the necessary expertise to bring safety and efficiency to the preparation of international contracts.

The firm assists clients with the preparation and analysis of B2B and B2C agreements; banking and supply agreements for products and services, with or without collaterals; acknowledgement of debt; distribution and commercial representation.

Real estate: We advise our clients on real estate developments, structuring, negotiations and operations, including property registration and leasing that involve collateral issues, personal and fiduciary guarantees. We work to ensure proper management and effectiveness of operations to prevent litigation.

We also advise on various issues related to land subdivision and structuring of built-to-suit real estate operations.

Labour: Our labour practice is best known for conducting strategic labour cases, providing technical advice, legal opinions and reports. The area is also recognized for acting in public civil actions, collective actions, and labour actions brought by senior executives.

We provide extensive legal advice on matters related to labour judicial and administrative litigation, helping clients in different types of disputes and litigation throughout the country.

The firm is strongly involved in the conduct of administrative actions pending with the Labour Prosecution Office, in defence of the clients’ interests in notifications of infringement still pending with the Ministry of Labour.

The team is strongly engaged in giving lectures and training to keep clients well informed and prepared to comply with the new labour legislation.

Wealth planning and related litigation: The wealth planning practice advises the segment consisting of entrepreneurs, family businesses and groups of partners and senior executives.

We offer legal services covering tax planning, wealth and succession planning for individuals. The practice is oftentimes engaged in cross borders matters including tax planning prior to immigration.

We also provide litigation legal services in connection with related matters, such as disputes between heirs and partners and divorce, as well as individual tax lawsuits.

We have a team made up of professionals with a diversity of legal specialities such as corporate law, contracts, civil law focusing on family and succession, tax and economic criminal law. Our cross-disciplinary practice advises clients on overly sensitive matters involving the perpetuity of their family wealth and businesses. The team works in collaboration to deliver a unique and comprehensive solution to each client.

Venture capital: The venture capital department is active in all series of investment rounds, including cross-border ones and venture debt.  Our team navigate throughout the VC ecosystem, clearly understanding the needs and particularity of each player. Our tailor-made approach allows us to provide full and value-adding legal services to VC funds, CVCs and other investors, whether as lead or follower investors, as well as to startups in investment rounds or in the legal preparation phase for future rounds.

Mixing an agile, creative and experienced venture capital team with high qualified professionals in all fields of Law relevant to the projects, our firm can provide full legal due diligences on target companies, conduct complex corporate restructurings, tax planning and other important legal steps necessary to the rounds.

Our team members are active in initiatives aimed at developing the VC ecosystem, keeping updated of the market trends and best practices. We are members of the Brazilian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (ABVCAP), with representatives in the Regulation, Venture Capital and Corporate Venture Capital committees. Furthermore, our firm is an official partner of the “Scale-up in Brazil”, a program launched by the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex Brasil) to select and accelerate foreign startups to initiate or expand their business in Brazil.

Efficiency and contract simplification

Recognizing the significant challenges faced by legal departments in generating and demonstrating results in managing contractual demands, we have developed and implemented, in a pioneering initiative within the legal market, efficiency and contract simplification solutions for several medium and large companies, achieving great success.

Based on our experience, projects focused on contract simplification and efficiency deliver significant results in cost reduction, risk mitigation, and enhancement of the internal client experience. The scope of each project is defined through a diagnostic of opportunities for improvement in contract management and typically includes template simplification, workflow review (design thinking), creation of materiality filters, negotiation guideline playbooks, training for internal clients, and the establishment of KPIs for continuous improvement, among other deliverables.

Our team also has extensive experience handling routine contractual demands with a strategic focus on continuous improvement. We follow an agile process that is aligned with business needs, providing direct interaction with internal clients and ongoing mapping of opportunities to enhance the contractual framework of each company.

Japan desk: The Japanese community in Brazil is one of the largest in the world and Japan has invested in a number of different business segments in this country. This is a promising scenario, in which we can offer high quality technical services, literally speaking the same language as our clients. The creation of our Japan desk became a natural extension of the personalized services we offer to Japanese companies doing business in Brazil and Brazilian companies doing business in Japan.

The desk assists clients to overcome increasingly complex issues regarding Brazilian laws, regulations and customs in corporate, civil, labour and other fields of law.

Social responsibility: Abe Advogados firmly believes in extending access to the judiciary system and adequate methods of dispute resolution, either directly or indirectly, to create opportunities for people in situations of vulnerability. We undertake social actions, and we encourage our staff to get involved in different social projects.