Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices (ACCRALaw)

Senior Partner Antitrust & Trade Regulation | Arbitration and Mediation | Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Corporate Rehabilitation | Construction | Litigation | Privacy, Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Ms. Prodigalidad specializes in commercial litigation, white collar crime, intra-corporate disputes, banking, investments and securities litigation, anti-money laundering, corporate rehabilitation and insolvency, international commercial and construction arbitration, and intellectual property and antitrust litigation. She represents multinational financial institutions and their officers in suits involving complex commercial agreements and transactions (including foreign exchange transactions, financial derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, and other securities/financial instruments) as well as before regulatory investigations. Leveraging on her science background, Ms. Prodigalidad also represents clients in environmental litigation. She has likewise assisted clients in various congressional inquiries.

She has handled (and/or is handling) significant cases and transactions including the following where she:

led the team of lawyers that worked towards the approval of the rehabilitation plan of one of the oldest life insurance companies in the Philippines; assisted the country’s largest power distribution company in environmental litigation commenced by detractors of its substations and sub-transmission lines; headed the team that negotiated and drafted the various contracts (including the Particular Conditions of the FIDIC EPC Contract) relating to Stage 2 of the Skyway Project; acted on behalf of the world’s largest real estate data company based out of the United States and led the team of lawyers that obtained and implemented civil search and seizure writs premised on large scale copyright infringement perpetrated by a Philippine BPO for its American principal; supervised the team of lawyers that successfully represented a Swiss multinational healthcare company in a patent infringement and injunction suit against the Korean manufacturer of a biosimilar; led the team of lawyers that successfully represented the country’s leading motorcycle manufacturer in an ad hoc arbitration involving its cargo forwarder and distributor; leads the team of lawyers representing one of the major IOCs in a landmark environmental litigation relating to global warming before the Philippine Commission Human Rights; assisted a French multinational pharmaceutical company in a senate inquiry relating to one of its biological products and continues to represent it in product liability suits; and assists the second largest universal domestic bank in the Philippines in the rehabilitation of the Philippine subsidiary of a South Korean-based shipbuilding and shipyard company.

Ms. Prodigalidad also acts as an arbitrator in international commercial and domestic arbitration, both institutional and ad hoc, as well as in Philippine construction arbitration. She is an accredited arbitrator of the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission (CIAC), the Philippine Dispute Resolution Center, Inc. (PDRCI) where she currently serves as Trustee and Corporate Secretary and the Philippine Office of ADR (OADR). On the international front, she is a part of the arbitrator panels of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution of the American Arbitration Association. She has acted as a co-arbitrator as well as chairperson in various commercial and construction arbitrations and has penned the first emergency arbitrator decision in the Philippines in a dispute involving the pre-termination of a port services agreement.

Ms. Prodigalidad has authored a number of legal articles, including:

“An Arbitrator’s `Expert, Yet Secret Knowledge’: Friend or Foe? (Lessons Learned From The Bankard Saga” [12(1) Asian International Arbitration Journal 1-20 (2016)]; “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in the Philippines: Challenges after the 2009 Special ADR Rules” [6(2) Asian International Arbitration Journal 101-133 (2010)]; and, “Assimilating DNA Testing into the Philippine Criminal Justice System: Exorcising the Ghost of the Innocent Convict” [79 PHIL. L.J. 930 (2005)].

She also co-authored the Philippine chapters of:

“International Arbitration” [Chambers Global Practice Guide, Chambers and Partners (2019)]; “The Private Competition Enforcement Review” [Ilene Knable Gotts (Ed.), Law Business Research, pp. 189-314 (2019)]; “ASEAN Product Liability and Consumer Product Safety Law” [Profs. Luke Nottage and Sakda Thanitcul (Eds.), pp. 151-195 (2016)]; and, “ARBITRATION IN THE PHILIPPINES”, [published in “INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION IN ASIA”, Ali, Shahla F. and T.B. Ginsburg (Eds.), Juris Publishing Inc. (U.S.A., 2013)].

Ms. Prodigalidad has likewise delivered various papers and/or spoke in various local seminars and international conferences on a vast array of topics on commercial litigation and ADR, such as:

“Arbitration and Adjudication: Complimentary ADR Mechanisms”, sponsored by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Cebu City Chapter in November 2018; “Fraud: The Pervasive (and Possibly Devastating) Menace”, delivered at the 78th Annual Convention of The Institute of Internal Auditors of the Philippines (IIAP) in October 2018; “Tackling Fraud, Bribery & Corruption In South East Asia – The Road Ahead”, sponsored by the International Chamber of Commerce FraudNet held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2014; “Insolvency of Natural Persons” at the 9th Forum on Asian Insolvency Reform co-sponsored by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), INSOL International and The World Bank from 3 to 5 December 2013 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC); and, “The Use of DABs in South East Asia” in the 5th FIDIC Asia-Pacific Contract Users’ Conference held on 12 June 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ms. Prodigalidad is an accredited Mandatory Continuing Legal Education lecturer and is a professorial lecturer in the University of the Philippines College of Law. In 2005, she taught Special Problems in Commercial Law and is currently teaching Civil Procedure.

Ms. Prodigalidad has also assisted in the drafting of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Philippine ADR Act of 2004 and the Supreme Court Rule on DNA Evidence. She has served as a member of the ADR Committee of the Philippine Bar Association and is a continuing Philippine delegate to the ADR Standing Committee of the ASEAN Law Association. She has recently been elected as a trustee of the ASEAN Law Institute.

Ms. Prodigalidad is currently a trustee of various institutions such as the UP Women Lawyers’ Circle, the Harvard Law School Alumni Association Inc. and the Philippine Institute of Construction Arbitrators and Mediators. She likewise held various positions in the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, where she served as Assistant National Secretary from 2011 to 2015 and National Secretary from 2015 to the present.

She is the Philippine delegate of FRAUDNET, a network under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce-Commercial Crime Services that specializes in globalized fraud litigation and asset recovery. She also served as a volunteer lawyer of the Child Justice League, a non-profit and nongovernmental organization committed to protecting the rights of, and obtaining justice for, all abused and neglected children.

In 2013, Ms. Prodigalidad passed the Fédération Internationale Des Ingénieurs-Conseils (FIDIC) Dispute Board Adjudicator Assessment Workshop sponsored by FIDIC and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and is one of four (4) Philippine delegates accredited as a dispute board adjudicator.

From 2017 to 2019, Ms. Prodigalidad was awarded as “Commended External Counsel of the Year” by Asian-Mena Counsel. She has also been consistently recognized as one of the Leading Lawyers in the field of Dispute Resolution & Litigation by Asia Law Profiles, Chambers Asia-Pacific, Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500. She was cited as a “very bright and very active” commercial litigator, praised for her “imaginative and creative” arguments, further commended for her strategic approach that considers client’s business needs and described as “good in terms of strategy” and great in handling complex litigation involving cross-border issues. Since 2012 to the present, Ms. Prodigalidad has also been cited as among the key practitioners and experts in the field of Asset Recovery by Who’s Who Legal 100.

Ms. Prodigalidad was recognized by Asialaw Profiles as a Distinguished Practitioner in the practice area of dispute resolution in 2019.

She was regarded as a “Leading Lawyer,” and was recommended for the practice area of Dispute Resolution in the Asia Pacific Legal 500 for 2020.

In 2019, Ms. Prodigalidad was also one of the distinguished recipients of the “The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS)” award for her outstanding contributions to the field of law

Ms. Prodigalidad ranked first among the successful examinees of the 1996 Bar Examinations and was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1997.

English Pilipino

She is a member of the Makati Chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the Philippine Bar Association, the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, and the University of the Philippines Women Lawyers’ Circle.

Master of LawsHarvard University, USA, 2004

Bachelor of LawsUniversity of the Philippines, 1996Salutatorian; cum laude

Bachelor of Science in BiologyUniversity of the Philippines, 1992Valedictorian; magna cum laude