Barroso Fontelles, Barcellos, Mendonça & Associados

BFBM Advogados in numbers

Executive Partners: Eduardo Mendonça, Felipe Fonte, Felipe Monnerat Solon de Pontes Rodrigues, Karin Khalili Dannemann, Rafael Barroso Fontelles, Thiago Magalhães Pires, Konstantinos Andreopoulos, Eduardo Nunez, André Zanatta, Irapuã Santana and Tiago Correia da Silva.

Managing Partner: Renata Saraiva

Number of partners: 19

Number of associates: 239

Offices: Brasília, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Firm Overview

The firm was founded in 2013, to continue the legacy of Luis Roberto Barroso & Associados, which already had over 30 years in the Brazilian dispute resolution market.

All the lawyers at the firm have outstanding academic background and the team frequently tackles the most complex cases for its clients. The firm also provides volume litigation to certain strategic clients who have a large demand of disputes.

In line with legal and ethical standards that rule the practice of law, BFBM keeps an up to date compliance program, following all relevant legislation, to provide a safe working environment for professionals and clients.

The firm has four main purposes: Diversity (to be a plural workplace, with people from all backgrounds, religions, races and genders), Balance (to value the wellbeing of its people and achieve a healthy work-life balance), Solidarity (to offer Pro-Bono work to those who need help to access the judiciary); Innovation (to drive technological innovation within the firm and the legal sector).

Main Areas of Practice

Litigation

BFBM Advogados is a law firm with outstanding expertise in Litigation, exclusively focused on dispute resolution matters, being able to handle arbitration and litigation cases in both contentious and non-contentious matters.

It furnishes advice on the full spectrum of dispute resolution issues and acts on both judicial and administrative proceedings .

Team Composition

The team is composed of highly specialized Partners and Associates that have vast experience in Litigation and academic credentials that range from Civil to Constitutional Law.

Specialities & Strengths

The team frequently tackles the most complex cases for its stellar clientele and provides volume litigation to certain strategic clients who have a large demand for disputes.

The group is well-known for its decisive presence in the High Courts of Brazil and is frequently sought after by clients when their proceedings reach such instance, after having been handled unsuccessfully by other law firms.

Consumer Law

In Consumer Law, they act on the side of companies and create defences of significant theses, avoiding precedents that could become an open gate for repetitive cases.

Team Composition

The team is composed of highly specialized Partners and Associates with vast experience in Consumer Law and academic credentials ranging from Constitutional Civil Law to Civil Procedure.

Partner Konstantinos or “Dino” as he is better known, used to be a Superintendent at Itaú, when he joined BFBM.

Specialities & Strengths

The team is well known for its skills in structuring complex and strategic defences in high-level litigation cases.

They are also frequently seen acting from contractual aspects to debates on civil liability and consumer rights to environmental licensing.

Labour

In Labour, they cover bargaining agreements and class actions in relation to both contentious and non-contentious matters.

Team Composition

The team is composed of highly specialized Partners and Associates that have vast experience in Labour and academic credentials that range from Labour to Civil Procedure.

Specialities & Strengths

The team is well known for its skills in structuring complex and strategic defences in high-level labour litigation cases and is specifically sought after by clients who require legal representation in important cases with theses that may impact the entire labour law market.

Industry sector strengths

The three main areas of industry sector expertise for the team are banking, telecommunications, and the internet. The team also represents clients from a wide range of sectors, including oil and gas, food and beverages, shopping centres, insurance, and entertainment.

With the booming expansion of the FinTech sector in Brazil and the group’s expertise on the internet and banking sectors, it was only natural that digital banks would seek to be advised by BFBM. C6 is a new digital bank in Brazil that is one of the firm’s new client wins.

International clients

Our portfolio of international clients is remarkable and includes names from countries such as TheUnited States, Mexico, and Spain.

Brasília and Rio de Janeiro

The Brasília team handles around 400 cases in the Superior Courts of Brazil and the TJDFT. Plus around 200 cases that come from the other BFBM offices once they reach the superior courts. 50% of the firm’s turnover comes from the Brasília office.

The firm has trained and recruited lawyers, especially in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, and isfrequently seen acting before Higher Courts. This involves a wide array of measures, such as strategy elaboration, appeal monitoring, appeals and internal appeals, representation of amici curiae, complaint handling, processes of original jurisdiction of these courts and constitutional remedies, memorial writing, leading cases monitoring, etc.

Specialities & Strengths

The teams are well known for its skills in structuring complex and strategiclitigation and is specifically sought after by clients who require experience performing and communicating in the Superior Courts.

These teams stands out for its performance before the Higher Courts, especially the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), as well as the Labour Superior Court (TST) and the Federal General Accounting Office (TCU).

Some of these team’s most prominent clients in this practice area are Google, Itaú, Telefônica, Petrobras, Vibra and Telebrasil.

Contact

Brasília

SHIS QL 12, conjunto 05, casa 03 Lago Sul | 71630-255 | Brasília | DF Tel.: 61 3409 1000 | e-mail: [email protected]

Data Protection and Technology

The Firm has been working intensively with Data Privacy, Digital and Internet Law matters since its foundation in 2013 and long before the GDPR and the LGPD passed, as the firm was born already with Google as a major client and facing user privacy and technology issues.

Since then, other big tech companies such as Meta/Facebook, TikTok, Mercado Livre, Nubank, Uber, Buser, and startups such as LiberFly/Zamorfe have come, and they have built and invested in a team of 55 + professionals with distinguished academic backgrounds and extensive practical experience in Privacy and Data Protection and Technology.

Team Composition

Founding partner Eduardo Mendonça handles over 300 sensitive Google Law Enforcement cases dealing with user privacy. He is also Google's main outside counsel before the Supreme Court and the Superior Court of Justice.

The arrival of partner André Zanatta to be the head of the department - who worked for 8.5 years in-house as Senior Counsel at Google's Legal Department in Brazil and London on litigation, varied consulting, and privacy matters - has brought relevant in-house experience to BFBM.

André also represents clients in public consultations opened by the ANPD, the Brazilian Data Protection Authority. ​Also, Andre is involved in over 25 projects of compliance with the LGPD, for medium and big-size companies of different sectors, with a focus on startups. Andre's team conducts these projects individually, in a boutique style. They also advise our clients on Privacy by Design, from the early stage of product and software development.

Specialities & Strengths

The team is well known for its skills in structuring complex and strategic Privacy and Data Protection matters and is specifically sought after by clients who require personalised assistance in consulting as well as in litigation. Their clients include big companies such as Google, Meta/Facebook, TikTok, Itaú Unibanco, Nubank and Telefonica.

Big banks, tech, and telecom companies such as Google, Meta / Facebook, TikTok, Itaú Unibanco, Mercado Livre, Nubank and Telefonica come to them for complex Privacy and Tech matters, both consulting and litigation. Clients recognize them for their strong presence before higher and constitutional courts (and the landmark victories they have already obtained on right to be forgotten and platform liability matters) and the constitutional twist that we give to every privacy case that they litigate and legal opinions and memoranda that they produce.

Telecommunication

The team is well known by the sector’s major players for its skills in structuring complex and strategicdefences to telecommunication litigation and is specifically sought after by clients who require a team working with a problem-solving approach towards litigation, building strategies connected with the clients’ business models, with state-of-the-art knowledge of Telecom’s regulations and Procedural Law, and with the ability to provide advice from cases ranging from class actions on trial courts to Supreme Court precedent building practices.

They are also frequently seen acting in negotiations involving telecom agreements, permits, concessions of use, collection for the exercise of the right of way, infrastructure improvement, environmental licensing, land use and occupation rules, settlements (TACs), 4G and 5G technologies, etc.

Also, in collaboration with unions and associations active in the area, they create theses and countertheses to systematically redesign the jurisprudence in the sector, making it more efficient and prosperous.

Public Law

In Public Law, BFBM acts out of court and in administrative, public, and regulatory law litigation. The firm’s expertise covers matters such as public tenders, administrative contracts, concessions, permissions and authorizations, administrative improbity, settlements (TACs), public-private partnerships (PPPs), concessions of the right to use and dispose of public areas, fiscal responsibility, control of administrative acts, state intervention in the economy, sanctioning administrative power, and regulatory issues (including legislative process).

Team Composition

The department is comprised of lawyers who are also seasoned academics in this field, frequently providing legal opinions on the most complex matters concerning public law.

Specialities & Strengths

The team is well known for its skills in structuring complex and strategic advice on constitutional and public matters. We provide legislative advice, draft preliminary projects, and veto/justification texts. We also participate in public hearings and consultations, acting before and with the administrative and supervisory bodies, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, and audit courts.

They are highly specialized in Constitutional Law and Constitutional procedure. The firm stands out for its performance before the higher courts, especially the Federal Supreme Court, positioning itself as a prominent player in the constitutional debates held in State and Federal Courts. In addition to controlling regulatory acts, BFBM has extensive expertise in representing clients as amicus curiae and interested third parties. The unconstitutionality incidents formulated by the firm in the lawsuits that are pending in the ordinary courts have the differential of being prepared by professionals qualified in law and constitutional process based on their specific knowledge and experience before the higher courts.

Contact: www.bfbm.com.br

Tel:+55 61 3409-1000 | +55 21 2221-1177 | +55 11 3078-8589