Mayora & Mayora, S.C.

Mayora & Mayora, S.C. is a leading law firm in Central America for international business transactions and finance. The firm has existed for more than 50 years and has four offices in every country in the Northern Triangle: Guatemala (Guatemala City), Honduras (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula) and El Salvador (San Salvador). These offices work together seamlessly to provide the best possible service to clients. The firm has a team of over 38 lawyers to assist clients in a wide spectrum of legal matters. Mayora & Mayora believes in a client-centric approach, assigning specialists to each case so that the client is in the best hands imaginable. More than half of the attorneys and staff that are part of Mayora & Mayora’s dynamic team are women, including four partners and the CEO. Mayora & Mayora offers to its clients a single, entirely integrated firm, with one of the longest trajectories in the region. It is one single point of contact across multiple jurisdictions, providing the client with seamless, efficient, and robust legal services.

The firm assists clients in the following main practice areas:

Banking and finance: The firm handles all areas of banking and finance law including loan financing, insurance and reinsurance, financial transactions and guaranties, structured finance, project finance and regulation. The firm has experts Claudia Pereira, Manuel Telles, Sandra Castillo and María Fernanda Morales Pellecer on its roster. The firm represents some of the largest financial institutions such as, Banco Industrial, Citibank, and JP Morgan Chase. For years, the firm and its lawyers have been recognized by LACCA, Chambers & Partners, IFLR1000, The Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal for this practice area.

Civil: The firm handles all types of cases dealing with contract law, torts, estates and trusts, as well as real estate. In this practice area, Sandra Castillo guides clients with her expertise.

Commercial and securities: The firm deals with commercial contracts, unfair competition, and other commercial matters. Furthermore, it advises clients on law pertaining to investment funds, securities and derivatives. It also assists investment firms to structure and license their operations. Renowned experts, Eduardo Mayora A. and Claudia Pereira, assist clients in this area of practice.

Corporate and M&A: The firm is renowned as one of the best corporate firms in the region. It provides legal services for a variety of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and corporate governance and restructurings. Partners, Claudia Pereira, Sandra Castillo and Odín Guillén are all experts in this practice group. For years, the firm and its lawyers have been awarded by LACCA, Chambers and Partners, IFLR1000, The Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal for this practice area.

Administrative, energy and telecommunications: The firm represents national and international companies in the transportation, commercialization, distribution and generation of energy with some of the most significant players in the energy industry, having one of the area’s foremost experts as partner, Rafael Briz. The firm is renowned in telecommunications law and has been for decades, having both Rafael and Eduardo Mayora A. at the forefront of this practice area. The firm stands alone in the highest tier for this practice area in Chambers & Partners.

Intellectual property: This practice area is exclusively handled by sister firm, Mayora IP, S.A. It specializes in the registration and protection of marks, patents and other intellectual property rights. Its counterpart, Mayora Domains, focuses on domain name registration, management and recovery of the client’s domain name.

Labour and immigration: The firm practices frequently in labor related matters including but not limited to, drafting and reviewing labor contracts, applying for labor permits, filing documents with the labor authorities, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, and preparing internal procedure manuals. The firm also assists in filing temporary and permanent resident applications and applying for work permits for foreigners. The firm has expert, Rafael Briz, leading this practice group with star associates, Suzel Obiols and Jennifer Mejía, a certified specialist in occupational safety law.

Litigation and arbitration: The firm is responsible for some of the most important commercial suits and arbitrations in the region in this practice area led by partner and expert, Paola Galich. The team has had experience litigating in courts, as well as arbitrating locally and abroad. The lawyers can be seen in all levels of the national judiciary, defending clients in the Constitutional Supreme Court as well as in the lower level trial and appellate courts. We are well-versed in the arbitral rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), among others.

Taxation and trade: The firm is renowned for its tax work in planning and negotiating with the authorities, as well as representing clients in front of the tax authorities and courts. Many of our lawyers have had specialist training in tax or have worked for the national tax authority in the past, including recognised experts Eduardo Mayora A. (who was a member of the Board of Directors of the national tax authority from 1998 until 2000) and Juan Carlos Casellas. The firm has much experience in trade regulation and international trade matters.

Representative clients: Avianca; Banco Industrial; Beiersdorf de Centroamérica, S.A.; BICSA; Bolsa de Valores Nacional; Cementos Progreso; Chevron Guatemala, Inc.; Citibank; CLARO; Cofiño Stahl; Crowley; Desarrollos MIR; DIAGEO; Dos Pinos; Energuate; First Cash Financial; Fresenius Medical Care; Gas Natural Fenosa; GBM (an IBM alliance company); Grupo Terra; Hoffmann-La Roche; Ingenio Palo Gordo; Interjet; International Finance Corporation; JP Morgan; Kimberly-Clark; Kraft; Laboratorios Vijosa; Marriott International, Inc.; Mega Pharma; Millicom International; Monsanto Company; Neon Energy; Obrascon Huarte Lainn (OHL Group); Papa John’s Pizza, Pasmo de Guatemala; Payless Shoe Source; Philip Morris, Inc.; Productos Roche; Santander Sugar; Telus; Texaco; The Kellogg Company; UFINET.

Associations and memberships: In addition to proudly being Guatemala’s exclusive Lex Mundi member, the firm belongs to other well-known associations such as the International Bar Association, Lataxnet, WTS, Euro Latam Lex and the International Fiscal Association.