Pilar Castillo

Aircraft Registration and Financing

Corporate Law

Doing Business and Multinationals in Panama

Ports and Logistics, Bunkering and Maritime Services

Ship Registration and Financing

Pilar Castillo joined ARIFA in 2010 and became a partner in 2017.

Worked as legal counsel to the Panama Maritime Authority’s Directorate General of Merchant Marine, assisting in the implementation of efforts in order to reposition Panama in the Paris MOU white list of ship registries.

Panama Maritime Law Association (APADEMAR), Lex Mundi, Interlaw.

Ms. Castillo is an experienced international shipping finance and transactional lawyer who participates in the most complex financings as well as sale and purchase transactions of offshore platforms and other type of vessels, assisting banks and ship owners. Her profound knowledge of Panama’s maritime, commercial and corporate laws allows her to solve issues that come along the way of the negotiations in an efficient and creative manner, and develop each unique transaction structure and closing logistics in the most practical way.

Ms. Castillo is also experienced in port operations, including maritime ancillary services, and works together with ARIFA’s M&A and Banking and Capital Markets teams by providing her maritime-port expertise in complex transactions.

Ms. Castillo frequently works with lawyers in other practice areas providing an IBT lawyer’s perspective on M&A transactions, and commodity finance and secured transactions located in Panamanian free zones.

As an active member of ARIFA’s Equipment and Aircraft Financing legal team, she has represented leasing companies and investors in the most complex transactions, and has been recognized for her extraordinary legal work in the multiple transactions arising from COPA Airlines’ expansion of its fleet of international transport based in Tocumen International Airport (the largest airline in Panama and one of the most important in Latin America).

In 2016, Ms. Castillo was accepted as a IAWA member (International Aviation Women’s Association). She is also a membre of WISTA (Women's International Shipping & Trading Association).

Master of Laws, Fordham University (2009) (concentration on international business and trade law)

Bachelor of Laws (Licenciatura en Derecho y Ciencias Políticas), summa cum laude, Santa Maria la Antigua University (2008)