The firm: Gruba Law was founded in 1993 by the late Daisy G. Zambrano and Lily K. Gruba. Starting out as the legal department of a commercial bank, the practice quickly grew into litigation and labor. Lily served in government as Undersecretary for the Department of Finance in 1998. The tax and corporate practice was then established and continued to grow, with the Firm handling many landmark cases for local airlines, banks and real estate companies. Recently the Firm has been recognized for its M&A and transactional advisory work.
Through our strategic alliance with WongPartnership LLP, a top law firm in Singapore, we are a member firm of the WPG regional law network comprising of firms from the Middle East, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.
Gruba Law continues to grow in size and in our practice fields whilst keeping our core values of excellence, diligence, innovation and service foremost.
Areas of practice: Gruba Caganda Advincula Melo & de la Fuente (“Gruba Law” formerly ZGLaw) is a mid-sized, full-service law firm representing and advising various local and foreign clients in the Philippines. We are highly regarded for our expertise on contentious and advisory tax. In the past years, we have been consistently recognized by our peers and legal publications for our Tax practice, as well as our practice in Banking & Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Dispute Resolution.
Taxation: the firm specialises in both litigious and non-litigious matters in taxation. For litigious matters, the firm handles claims for tax refunds or issuance of tax credit certificates, and cases for cancellation of deficiency tax assessments. For non-litigious matters, the firm handles the tax audit process, tax compliance, and reconciliation for and settlement of deficiency tax assessments.
Banking and finance: the firm is regularly consulted by domestic universal and commercial banking institutions on tax, operations, compliance and other related matters. As external counsel, the firm is regularly engaged by its client-banks to document multimillion-dollar loan transactions.
Corporate and M&A: the firm acts as adviser and counsel for businesses setting up offices in the Philippines. It is likewise on retainer by hundreds of companies for corporate housekeeping and regular corporate matters. In M&A, the firm acts as adviser and transaction counsel for multimillion-dollar asset and share acquisition deals.
Dispute resolution: the firm handles civil and criminal litigation before the lower courts, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court for its various clients. It likewise participates in arbitration proceedings in local and foreign arbitration tribunals. The firm currently handles numerous tax cases before the Court of Tax Appeals and the Supreme Court.
Number of lawyers : 24
English
Filipino
Fookien
Mandarin
Contacts : Antero Jose M Caganda
Contacts : Angelo Patrick F Advincula
22nd February 2017
“Endo” is the twin brother of the drug monster that
also needs to be slain, so says the Duterte administration. “Endo” is layman’s term for end of employment
contract. It is the date indicated on
the employment contracts and is dreaded by employees as it means the end of his
or her employment. Read more...
22nd February 2017
Antitrust
laws, also referred to as “competition laws”, are statutes developed to protect
consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition
exists in an open-market economy. Competition laws regulate and prohibit several
questionable business activities such as market
allocation/ de facto monopoly whereby companies agree to steer clear of each
other’s identified geographical market or territories; bid rigging whereby conspiring entities manipulate the market with
a view of retaining current market share and price for each entity; and price fixing whereby two or three
entities agree on the same selling price. Competition laws are designed to
maximize consumer welfare by regulating or preventing business activities which
stifle competition. Read more...
17th February 2017
(1)What are the different
forms of investment one can use?
This is critical and
fundamental because each form has its own characteristics, requirements,
advantages and disadvantages that may affect or influence one’s decision in
determining which form best suits the business to be established or investment
to be made. Read more...
17th February 2017
Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQ) on investing in the Philippines, such as choosing the right corporate vehicle, the allowed areas of investment, tax incentives, and other key information.