SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan (SyCipLaw) is pleased to announce that Hector M. de Leon, Jr. has been elected as the firm’s managing partner. Mr. de Leon joined SyCipLaw in 1988 and has been a member of the firm’s Executive Committee since 2014.

Mr. de Leon’s practice focuses on corporate and commercial matters, with emphasis on equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, project development and finance, and similar commercial transactions. Together with the other lawyers of the firm, he worked on some of the biggest M&A transactions in the Philippines, several of which were awarded or nominated as “Deal of the Year” by international publications.

Mr. de Leon has authored or co-authored books and articles on, among others, commercial law and civil law. He is a fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors and a member of the Tax Management Association of the Philippines.

He is a professorial lecturer at the University of the Philippines College of Law. He also worked as a legal officer at the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. He obtained his A.B. (cum laude) and LL.B. from the University of the Philippines and his LL.M. from the University of Michigan.

Chambers Global Guide 2016 named Mr. de Leon as one of the leading lawyers in the Philippines in "Projects, Infrastructure and Energy" (Band 1). He also belongs to Asialaw's 2016 Leading Lawyers in the Philippines. For the past several years, he is mentioned in Chambers Asia-Pacific's Leading Lawyers for Business and in The Legal 500: Asia Pacific Guide to Asia's Commercial Law Firms.

Mr. de Leon succeeds Rafael A. Morales who retired as a partner of the firm in March 2016.