PLMJ Strengthens its Tax Team With the Arrival of Two of Oporto's Most Renowned Tax Lawyers

September, 2016 - Lisbon, Portugal

The law firm PLMJ is pleased to announce the arrival at its Oporto office of two renowned tax lawyers João Velez de Lima and Francisco Castro Guedes, who respectively have more than 15 and 10 years’ experience in the market.

With these new arrivals, the PLMJ Tax team, which was named “Tax Firm of the Year” in May of this year by International Tax Review, has confirmed its leading position in the market. This position is not only based on the track record and know-how it has gained from advising on major investment and merger and acquisition operations, but also on the legal support it provides to large companies. This support includes tax planning, representing leading companies in litigation cases with the Tax Authority (in Portuguese type in speaking countries). Its leading position also reflects the capacity of its lawyers who form a team that is unmatched in terms of seniority and experience

João Velez de Lima was the head of the tax department at the Oporto office of Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, where he led on a number of international expansion projects by Portuguese groups to new markets. The new managing associate of PLMJ Tax in Oporto has more than 15 years' experience in tax consultancy and planning, and has also worked at KPMG and Garrigues.

Francisco Castro Guedes, who joins PLMJ from Garrigues, has more than 10 years' experience in tax law, with a particular focus on tax litigation and economic crime. The new senior associate at PLMJ Tax in Oporto has worked in the areas of corporate tax, Portuguese and European Union tax law and tax crime.

According to Miguel C. Reis, the PLMJ Tax partner at the Oporto office, “Strengthening the Oporto tax team by hiring João Velez de Lima and Francis, with whom I have worked previously at Garrigues and Arthur Andersen, and who join us from two internationally renowned law firms, is part of the strategy that focuses on the quality, experience and seniority of the team. Our objective is to strengthen this leading team and give it the capacity to provide a first class response to the needs of our clients and to the business community in the northern region of Portugal, both inside and outside the country.”

For Nuno Cunha Barnabé, the partner who heads PLMJ Tax, “The award we received this year from International Tax Review of ‘Tax Firm of the Year’, validated our strategy and helped consolidate our position of leadership in the market in providing tax legal support. For this reason, and because entrepreneurs and investors are becoming increasingly demanding, we have been focusing on growing the team by hiring senior lawyers who make PLMJ and the tax team the most international in the market and the partner of choice for our clients.”

The arrival of João Velez de Lima and Francisco Castro Guedes represents yet another step in PLMJ's growth and internationalisation strategy, in a year when the firm already has a portfolio of clients of whom more than 40% are foreign investors in Portugal or in Portuguese-speaking African countries. In-line with this strategy, last year, the PLMJ Tax team had already strengthened its international position through the firms of PLMJ International Legal Network in Angola and Mozambique, and also in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil.

The PLMJ Tax team is headed by partner Nuno Cunha Barnabé and includes partners João Magalhães Ramalho, Serena Cabrita Neto and Miguel C. Reis. These partners are part of a team of more than 20 lawyers, 11 of whom are senior lawyers with more than 10 years' experience. The team is based in Lisbon, Oporto, Faro, Luanda and Maputo.

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