Quevedo & Ponce

Firm Overview:
Quevedo & Ponce is recognised as one of the best law firms in Ecuador, supported by its prestige of almost 80 years of experience in the legal market, its national and international reach has been the driving force of its trajectory. It has been characterised by providing a high-quality professional service under the highest standards of knowledge and ethics.
Adaptability and innovation run through the veins of the firm's professionals, it maintains its professional practice-oriented to the defence of the client, with complete loyalty and subject to legal and ethical principles.

Main Areas of Practice:
Quevedo & Ponce is located in 4 strategic points of Ecuador, Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and Tulcán. This strong and efficient group maintains its leadership in litigation and arbitration. With firm offices in key cit- ies, the team represents itself in a wide range of conten- tious matters throughout Ecuador. The firm has been involved in major arbitration cases under UNCITRAL and ICSID rules, as well as in domestic arbitrations. Members of the firm have been consistently appointed as arbitrators with an impressive track record in devel- oping domestic and international arbitration. Negotiation and mediation have been the means used to resolve important cases. Quevedo & Ponce was founded in 1941 and has maintained its tradition of high-quality service with renewed techniques in complex litigation and actions against the government.
With its presence in the main cities of Ecuador and its constant activity and current devotion against corruption for the maintenance of the rule of law, Quevedo & Ponce has provided extensive support to its clients not only in litigation, arbitration, human rights, corporate structuring, mergers and acquisitions, issuance of bonds to be placed abroad, intellectual property, insurance and reinsurance, and taxation but also in the fields of maritime and customs law, for obtaining a maritime passport, nationalization of vessels, temporary admis- sion and operation of vessels for tourism services mainly in the Galapagos Islands.
Constitutional tutelage by judges has been an area of constant debate before the tribunals, especially given the difficulty imposed by the implementation of new concepts such as the adversarial principle and oral proceedings and hearings. Quevedo & Ponce has been a leader in imposing new trends in these matters.
In the field of intellectual property Quevedo & Ponce has obtained important decisions from the Supreme Court (now eliminated in Ecuador), the National Court of Justice and the Andean Court of Justice, decisions that constitute precedents and jurisprudence. Patent rights have been an issue of a constant dispute with the government. Recent court decisions obtained in cases brought by Quevedo & Ponce have declared as invalid certain administrative rulings rejecting the granting of patents. The law firm has obtained important resolutions in administrative proceedings for the nullity of registered trademarks in defence of its clients’ rights.

Langauges: Spanish, English, French

Clients:
The firm’s clients have been offered the best techniques to defend the patentability of inventions, mainly in the pharmaceutical field, and the validity of granted pat- ents, trademark litigation in administrative and judicial matters, as well as services in the sanitary regulatory field regarding sanitary registration and mandatory sanitary notifications, for drugs, medical devices, food, cosmetics, medical devices, natural medicines, cannabis, GMP, GSP, GTP as well as pharmacovigilance, technovigilance and labeling. Quevedo & Ponce has succeeding in preventing the enforcement of loseing arbitral awards that violated public policy of Ecuador.
The area of competition law, in defence of the freedom of contract and economic freedom to develop activities in an environment of free competition, has been covered by Quevedo & Ponce with a deep analysis with the successful intervention in defence of its clients, on administrative proceedings iniciated for he propose of the imposition of safeguards, getting them archived.
Quevedo & Ponce prides itself in being where its clients’ interests are, providing services, and defence to the energy and natural resources, infrastructure and investment, technology and innovation, telecommu- nications and media industries, serving the tourism, education, health and pharmaceutical, chemical, veterinary and medical devices industries.
The firm’s services are also focused on advising the manufacturing and marketing industries of mass con- sumption and retail products, insurance and reinsurance and financial institutions, the agro-industrial sector, banana, coffee, cocoa, the automotive industry, transportation and logistics and always supporting entrepreneurs.
The team of lawyers is highly trained in compliance and advising the firm's clients clients in the implementation of anti-corruption systems and policies.
Its partners and associates have graduate and post-graduate degrees from universities in the United States, Spain, United Kingdom and some are university professors in their areas of expertise in many of the most recognised universities in Ecuador and combine their time with their professional practice, keeping themselves at the vanguard of the discussion and study of the legal issues with the greatest national and global impact.