Iberian Lawyer July August 2013 Special Focus Latin America July 2017 | Page 9

Special focus: Latin America
M&A activity, employment regulations and fashion
law creating opportunities for firms in Costa Rica
Energy sector clients in Honduras and Guatemala also driving demand for legal services, in addition
to businesses operating in the Nicaraguan renewable energy and real estate sectors
“Costa Rica is the most mature market in
Central America and the most attractive
for investors and law firms, says Rafael
Sayagués,” managing partner for
Central America, Panama & Dominican
Republic at EY Tax & Law. “There are
opportunities in all the countries in the
region, but the risks and challenges in
each nation are different,” he adds.
EY Tax & Law partner Freddy Fachler
says Costa Rica offers more potential
than most of the Central American
in many sectors, though he adds that
countries such as Nicaragua follow
closely behind, particularly in relation to
real estate development and tourism.
“M&A deals are on the increase
in Costa Rica, a country which
multinationals are frequently selecting
as the location for their Central American
or Latin American headquarters, or
their shared services centres,” says
Sayagués. “This trend is creating more
work for law firms in the region,” he
adds. Costa Rica also recently passed
a labour reform, and companies’ need
to adapt to the new legislation will also
generate opportunities for employment
lawyers. Meanwhile, Fachler highlights
a number of other sectors that will
drive increasing demand for legal
services: “We are expanding and taking
advantage of prospects in innovative
sectors such as impact investing, social
entrepreneurship, fashion law, and
start-ups.”
Clean energy
Meanwhile, law firms also have
opportunities to grow their energy
sector practices in countries such as
Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala,
Sayagués says. “At the moment there
are interesting opportunities for clean
energy in Honduras, Guatemala
and the Dominican Republic, while
Nicaragua has offerings in renewable
energy and hospitality real estate,” he
explains. Elsewhere, the restructuring
of the tourism sector in the Dominican
Republic is attracting more interest,
as is the banking, consumer products
and infrastructure sectors, according to
Sayagués.
“There are many well established
law firms in Costa Rica and they have,
so far, been more successful than
their counterparts in neighbouring
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countries,” argues Sayagués. However,
he adds that they also face the challenge
of having to differentiate themselves in
a crowded market that includes local
and regional law firms. In addition, firms
face new trends in legal procurement,
as well as increasingly demanding
international clients.
In April 2017, EY Tax & Law
announced the full incorporation of
Integra Legal, a legal practice with offices
in Costa Rica and Guatemala. The move
came three years after Integra Abogados,
in Costa Rica, and Möller Abogados, in
Guatemala, joined EY Tax & Law Central
America as Integra Legal. EY Tax & Law
now has 200 professionals working in
the DR CAFTA countries (Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican
Republic) and Panama – it includes 102
lawyers working alongside specialists in
areas such as consulting, transactions, tax
and assurance.
Announcing the incorporation
of Integra Legal, EY Tax & Law
acknowledged that law firms had to
“disrupt the traditional models that have
been used to develop their operations and
serve their clients”. Key to this approach is
what the firm considers to be the need to
“anticipate new business trends.”
Freddy Fachler
Rafael Sayagués
Regional integration
Sayagués says the integration of Integra
Legal was “a new step in the process
of implementing modern trends in the
professional services sector.” He adds
that this “requires us to offer the market
the possibility of the full range of services
required under a single structure with
regional coverage, immediate access to
services in all other markets in the world,
industry and sector expertise, access to
state-of-the-art technologies (such as
automation and artificial intelligence)
and added value, insights and knowledge
beyond just traditional legal services that
are rendered in isolation.”
Both Fachler, a 2015 arrival from
Integra Legal, and Sayagués, who
joined EY in 2002, believe that “true
regional integration” of law firms is
achievable if firms put in place a model
that incorporates one single partnership
with integrated internal processes and
centralised account management across
business lines and services.
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