Professional notice
Portugal
PLMJ kept the initials of its founders in renaming itself from Pereira Sáragga Leal Oliveira Martins Júdice & Associados, while emphasising its ability to handle matters for international clients such as Ford, Visa and Barclays. The firm’s competition practice, headed by Ricardo Oliveira, continues to be stable in its composition.
On behalf of Visa, PLMJ opposed the proposed merger between SIBS and Redunicre, and successfully so; in July 2017, Portugal’s Competition Authority issued a draft prohibition decision barring SIBS’ purchase of the merchant acquiring business, leading the companies to drop the deal. The firm represented Grupo Bimbo in securing clearance of the multinational baked good maker’s acquisition of Panrico; GLO Dutch Bidco in the acquisition of Mallinckrodt’s nuclear imaging business; and Amtrol, which manufactures pressure cylinders and water system tanks, in its US$283 million sale to Worthington.
Among the firm’s non-confidential behavioural matters are partners Oliveira and Sara Estima counselling Barclays, the leniency applicant in the Portuguese enforcer’s probe of the banking sector. Oliveira, João Medeiros and Tiago Duarte represented the National Association of Pharmacies and its subsidiaries in a successful appeal against the enforcer’s €10.5 million fine for an abuse of dominance, cutting the penalty by more than 90%, which the firm says was by far the largest reduction in the history of the authority. However, in October 2017 a Portuguese court upheld the authority’s €150,000 fine on Ford Lusitana for providing inaccurate information during an antitrust investigation into the company’s car warranty clauses, which required customers to use only authorised repairers.
PLMJ is Portugal's largest and most senior law firm with 290 lawyers, including 58 partners. With 50 years of history and experience, PLMJ stands out as a full-service firm that offers a high degree of specialisation gained from working across industries, sectors and countries. The firm is recognised for its unparalleled quality in advising Portuguese, international and foreign investment clients on a wide range of matters.
Through its solid network, PLMJ has established itself as a benchmark for legal services outside Portugal, thanks to its partnerships with local, independent firms in Angola, Mozambique, China, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Brazil and Cape Verde. PLMJ also has specialised desks for France, Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Benelux, Scandinavia and Italy, to cover the key markets for outbound and inbound investment in Portuguese-speaking countries. Working with PLMJ Network, clients have access to multidisciplinary teams of lawyers who provide high quality cross-border services enhanced by deep knowledge of the local markets and legal systems where we work. This approach guarantees the day-to-day provision of integrated legal services throughout our network. Clients benefit not only from the contacts and the immediate response, but also the security the network affords while maintaining the same coordinating partner who manages the work of all teams involved.