KPMG Abogados, Spain > Madrid, Spain > Firm Profile

KPMG Abogados, Spain > Firm Profile

The firm

Founded in 1987, KPMG Abogados is one of the most prestigious law firms in Spain, and its legal and tax departments employ over 700 professionals in 13 offices throughout Spain, offering quality legal and tax advisory services within a multi-disciplinary framework.

Our professionals have the experience and technical knowledge necessary to offer the advice that customers require, with the highest quality. Our priority is to respond to your needs, addressing those issues of a legal nature that may affect you, with agility and technical precision

Areas of practice

KPMG Abogados is known for its profound knowledge of each of the areas of law related to the corporate world and to business in general. This allows it to offer clients the efficient, independent and rigorous assistance which they require, KPMG Abogados’ main legal areas are:

Banking, Finance & Regulatory Services:

KPMG Abogados offers clients (leading financial organisations) integrated and well-known teams who have the precise blend of skill and experience for the largest and most innovative projects in the sector. This includes public and private M&A, joint ventures and restructurings, regulatory compliance, investigations and disputes, debt and equity capital markets, structured finance and securitisation.

Mercantile & Corporate:

The KPMG Abogados mercantile department offers clients extensive experience and knowledge regarding the incorporation and establishment of all kinds of Spanish entities, as well as all types of corporate issues and transactions, including joint-ventures, mergers and acquisitions (legal due diligence, drafting and negotiation of sale and purchase of shares agreements, shareholders agreements and other transactional documents). The firm also provides legal services in connection with all kinds of commercial contracts and have specific teams with broad experience and track records in real estate law, maritime, transport and logistics law and intellectual and technology law. KPMG Abogados also offers its clients, banks and other credit and insurance complex and structured finance transactions (including, amongst others, rendering legal advice in numerous finance projects, assets structured finance and shipping finance transactions).

M&A & Corporate:

We provide assistance on all aspects of company mergers and acquisitions in any activity sector.

We provide sectorial and multidisciplinary advisory services, efficiently organizing the services required through coordination with the other KPMG teams involved, including financial, accounting, tax, labor or procedural law advisors taking part in the process.

The Mergers and Acquisitions team comprises highly qualified lawyers, with ample experience in the legal services needed at the various stages of a transaction. They have the unique ability to blend all the requirements of each and every one of our clients into a single service.

Our lawyers combine their legal skills with extensive knowledge of our clients’ industrial sectors. Some of the more important sectors are: Banking, Insurance, Real Estate, Telecommunications, Construction, Engineering, Advertising and Media, Energy, Food, Transport, Pharmaceutical Products, Biotechnology and Commerce.

Labour:

The labour practice covers all aspects of labour and social security in the management of human resources. The firm could highlight the specialised services in corporate reorganisations and restructuring advice, as well as services related to negotiation during labour conflicts, both individual and collective, through mediation, arbitration and conciliation. KPMG can also highlight its specialised services in labour and social security audits.

Litigation & Bankruptcy:

The department defends clients in proceedings including debt recovery, insolvency, and contractual litigations as well as all kinds of services connected to bankruptcy through KPMG Concursal.

Legal Compliance:

The firm offers clients (leading quoted organizations) a well-known team who have the precise blend of skill and experience for the largest and most innovative Compliance projects in the sector and the involvement of its members in Compliance international processes to draft and discuss standards related to this field.

These projects include the implementation of Crime Prevention and Compliance Programs according to the most updated national (UNE 19601, to be approved) and international standards (ISO 19600, ISO 37001) covering these areas as well as the provision of technical support so our clients are able to develop compliance-related policies and controls to fulfill legal and regulatory obligations .

Regulatory, Administrative and Competition:

In addition to offering comprehensive counselling in Administrative Law in general, administrative proceedings and urban planning, the department has extensive experience in providing legal support to both private and public entities, belonging to the different regulated sectors (energy, infrastructures, audio-visual, telecommunications, postal services, gaming, transport, roads, ports, health, etc.). Moreover, it is comprised of first-class specialists in the fields of Competition Law and European Union Law.

Intellectual Property &  New Technology

KPMG Abogados  has in place an experienced IP and technology practice offering advice in a wide range of matters connected to the intellectual property domain (designing strategies for the protection of all types of intangible assets: software, media and contents, trademarks, designs and inventions) as well as comprehensive counselling in all types of digital transformation, new technology or cybersecurity projects.

In addition, it also has a team specialized in data protection with experts that have spent more than a decade advising national and international clients in all kind of projects (from GDPR readiness exercises, audits or DPO support services to representation of its clients in both the administrative and civil courts).

Lawyer Profiles

Photo	Name	Position	Profile
	Jon Armendariz	Director	View Profile

Interviews

Francisco Uria, Global Head of Banking & Capital Markets at KPMG

KPMG abogados is on the threshold of a new era in which our professionals will form part of multidisciplinary teams offering our clients solutions to complex problems, sharing tools and platforms with them in order to make our communications easier and more secure. Being multidisciplinary, global and IT-evolved is our key strategy.

What do you see as the main points that differentiate kpmg abogados from your competitors?

“KPMG-abogados” is different from other law firms as we are part of a global, multidisciplinary services firm such as KPMG. This gives us the possibility to work with many other advisory and audit professionals who contribute relevant expertise in different fields, and the capability to use the most advanced technology.

As a legal firm within the “Big Four” we have brought on board many highly-ranked professionals from the different and most prestigious lawyers´ rankings (Chambers, Legal500, Best Lawyers, IFRL1000, etc.). This combination of quality, multidisciplinary approach and being highly IT-based is quite unique.

Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that?

The Spanish economy is recovering quite rapidly from the last crisis, with growth and employment showing a very positive trend in recent years. This has attracted additional interest in our economy from global investors. Areas related to M&A and transactions (including real estate) are the beneficiaries of this drive. I would also add that legal activity concerning regulatory implementation, especially in the financial sector (MIFID II, GDPR, PSD2 or PRIIPS), remains strong.

The activity surrounding Brexit has also been growing in recent months, with UK-based companies seeking different location alternatives, and Spanish companies established or with relevant activity in the UK wanting to gain a better understanding of the potential situations they are going to face in the coming years.

What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients?

One of the effects of the last crisis has been clients’ sensitivity to costs. This is something that it is not going to change (at least dramatically) in the near future, so we have to adapt to a situation in which prices are going to be low compared with traditional standards.

We need to be more efficient in order to be able to provide high quality legal services at a moderate cost while also protecting our profitability and ensuring proper remuneration for our professionals. There is no doubt that technology is the only way to make this happen.

Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them?

The change is already here. We are working to offer our clients shared tools and platforms in order to make our combined work more efficient and more secure. We are investing heavily in making this a reality for our clients.

Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business?

We prefer not to talk about individual clients or proposals but, generally speaking, I think that in the main regulatory implementation projects in which we have being participating over the last two years (MIFID II, GDPR, PSD2, PRIIPS or IDD) we have been able to help our clients in their strategic reflection, providing legal advice on the interpretation of new rules and helping them to effectively change their internal governance, systems and processes using a multidisciplinary team of lawyers and advisors.

I think those projects are a good illustration of the kind of complex projects we are equipped to deal with.

Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms – where do you see the firm in three years’ time?

In nearly all kinds of legal work there is a prior need for strategic reflection on the new regulatory aspects that are going to affect your business model, your profitability, the way in which clients will perceive you, the position you will occupy in the marketplace and your ability to compete with new entities (i.e. fintech or bigtech).

Data & analytics will be crucial to being in a position to provide sophisticated analysis and predictability to our clients, both in terms of customer behavior or future judicial decisions. I see KPMG as a multidisciplinary, global firm able to provide solutions to our clients by combining different perspectives, including tax and legal, and supported by technological capabilities we are only beginning to know.