Palacios, Prono y Talavera Abogados

Managing Partners: Carlos Palacios, Raul Prono
Senior Partners: Carlos Palacios, Raul Prono
Number of partners: 2
Number of other lawyers: 9

Contacts
Banking & Finance: Carlos Palacios
Corporate & Commercial: Raul Prono

Firm Overview:
The law firm was founded in 1985 by the attorneys Carlos Alberto Palacios Cañellas, Raul Prono Toñanez and Liliana Talavera Aponte. Nowadays, the staff contains two partners and nine associate lawyers. The main areas of practice are: banking and financial law, commercial and corporate law, shipping law, international trade and commodities, employment law and environmental law.

Main Areas of Practice:

Banking & Finance: 35%
Corporate & Commercial: 65%

Corporate & Commercial:
PP&T continues to lead the agro-business sector with multinationally-sized clients such as Bunge, Louis Dreyfus Commodities, CHS, C Vale and the joint venture Complejo Agro-Industrial Angostura. Agrotec, Agrofertil and Tecnomyl, the largest distributors of fertilizers are also among the most recurring clients.

In the water transport and logistic sector, PP&T have an unparalleled experience and practice in Paraguay. In addition to a vast list of clients in this sector which includes port terminals, charterers, P&I Clubs, local insurers, as well as foreign carriers as the likes of MSC, CMA-CGM, P&O Maritime, or locals as Navemar, Naviera Chaco and UABL, the firm started advising the shipping and logistic company of the petroleum giant trader Tragura in 2016 on a regular basis.

M&A business continued to be an important part of the firm’s work. At the beginning of the year, the firm advised GARDEN, the largest car dealer in Paraguay, in its acquisition of CUEVAS HERMANOS, the fourth largest dealer and exclusive distributor of Nissan. The acquisition of CANAL 13, a leading television air channel by the group JBB was also a considerable deal in terms of legal complexity and pricing.

The multimedia business has recently become a new niche of PP&T, which provides regular advice to the newspapers LA NACION, POPULAR, CRONICA, HOY and to various radios and television channels belonging to MULTIMEDIA, NACION and JBB groups.

New clients include the Dutch Concordia Group, the Brazilian Hidrovias, Atria Group Logistics, Garden Automotores S.A., KIA Automotores S.A.

Banking & Finance:
PP&T also holds a strategic market share in banking and finance legal business. Paraguay currently has 17 banks operating locally, out of which PP&T presently advise three of them. The firm still advises Banco BASA, Banco Sudameris and Banco GNB Paraguay. Also advised many clients with different structured loan facilities obtained from international financial entities and funds. Senior partners Carlos Palacios and Raul Prono are leading lawyers with more than 30 years of experience in the banking and finance sector. Carlos Palacios is director of the Centro de Arbitraje y Mediación del Paraguay (CAMP) for arbitration disputes and past president of the prestigious Instituto de Derecho Bancario y Societario (IPDBS) as was for years head counsel of Bank Boston Paraguay, and together with Prono they led probably the largest number of incorporations, mergers, acquisitions and winding up of financial institutions in Paraguay, working for both the private and public sectors. 

Languages:
English, Portuguese, Spanish.

Latin America Offices:
PP&T has a strong branch and permanent physical presence in Ciudad del Este, the second largest city of Paraguay in terms of legal business. Senior associate Raul Prono Zelaya has settled in Ciudad del Este ten years ago and he heads the team that directly addresses the needs of the clients located in that region of the country, specially the agribusiness clients.

Clients:
PP&T holds among its clients several national and multinational companies in the areas of agribusiness, export/import/commercial, industry/maquila, services, maritime and finance, banking and insurance.