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 while maintaining 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 and finance, mergers and acquisitions, and dispute resolution.
Taxation: the firm specializes in both litigious and non-litigious matters in taxation. For litigation 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 also 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.