Firm Profile > Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles > Manila, Philippines

Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles > Firm Profile

The firm: The firm traces its roots to the law firm of Gibbs, McDonough and Ozaeta, which practised law in the Philippines in the early 1900s. Allison D Gibbs was a well-known tax and corporate lawyer and Charles A McDonough was a name in criminal law practice. Roman A Ozaeta, who later became a distinguished justice of the Supreme Court, and his son, Herminio, an outstanding corporate lawyer in his own right, re-established the firm in 1957. The firm underwent several name changes because of a rule limiting the partnership name to living and active partners (a rule which was subsequently abolished), and eventually acquired its present name.

The current senior partners are Ricardo J Romulo, Jose F Buenaventura and Eduardo de los Angeles. One partner, Exequiel B Javier, is on leave, having been elected as governor of Antique province. The firm currently has 98 lawyers.

Romulo is the only Philippine firm with an office in Hong Kong. It provides international investors with advice on Philippine law and advises Philippine clients on international transactions. However, it is not permitted to practise Hong Kong law.

The firm maintains correspondence with foreign lawyers and law firms. It is the sole Philippine member of Lex Mundi, a worldwide network of 160 independent law firms.

Areas of practice: The firm engages in the general practice of law but its members specialise in particular areas. The majority of the firm’s lawyers have received training and graduate degrees from foreign universities. All of them speak fluent English, and some also speak Chinese, Spanish and Japanese.

The firm’s specialist areas of practice include: alternative dispute resolution; capital market transactions; corporate reorganisations and bankruptcy; energy; environmental law; export and economic zones; healthcare; infrastructure; insurance; joint ventures; merger and acquisitions; oil and gas; privatisation; tax compliance audits; telecommunications; and trusts and estates.

Lawyer Profiles

Photo	Name	Position	Profile
	Mr Fernando Arguelles, Jr.	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Jose Gabriel Benedicto	Partner	View Profile
	Ms Yvette Chua	Yvette C. Chua is a partner	View Profile
	Ms Anna Cristina Collantes-Garcia	Partner	View Profile
	Wilma M. Valdemoro Cua	Senior Partner	View Profile
	Mr V. Johann Espiritu	Partner	View Profile
	Gizela Gonzalez	Partner	View Profile
	Mr. Justin Vincent   J. La Chica	JV is an associate who focuses on various fields of legal practice,…	View Profile
	Lee Benjamin Lerma	Partner	View Profile
	Enriquito Mendoza	Senior Partner	View Profile
	Mr Jomini Nazareno	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Perry Pe	Senior Partner, Member of the Executive Board, Department Head	View Profile
	Mr Luis Alfonso Seña	ASSOCIATE	View Profile
	Mr Jesse Eleazer Tantoco	Associate	View Profile
	Joyce Anne Wong	Senior Associate	View Profile

Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles > Firm Profile

Our mission is to pursue at all times the path of excellence, to develop our capabilities to the fullest, and to extend ourselves to the limit.

Our vision is to faithfully adhere to the principles of dedicated service in the finest traditions and highest ideals of a learned and noble profession.

From a modest commercial law practice in downtown Manila at the turn of the 20^th century, today we are one of the largest and most highly regarded law firms in the Philippines with a full offering of legal services, including advice and representation in banking and finance, capital market and securities, energy and infrastructure, immigration, intellectual property, labor and employment, litigation and arbitration, real estate and natural resources, taxation, and technology, media, and telecommunications.

We are composed of more than 100 lawyers – all of whom speak English fluently and a good number of whom have received training and graduate degrees from universities abroad. Our lawyers are also active officers and members of business and civic associations in the Philippines and around the world.

We are the sole Philippine member of Lex Mundi, a global network of about 160 independent law firms, with a combined total of more than 21,000 lawyers in all commercially significant jurisdictions throughout the world. We are also the TRACE partner firm in the Philippines and join other TRACE firms around the world in providing practical and cost-effective anti-bribery compliance to global businesses.

“First, we are lawyers above all else and, as such, we must be votaries of the law, and as integral parts of the legal system, we are committed to make it work. Second, we are advocates and, as such, we must within reason defend and protect the legitimate interests of our clients. Third, we are professionals and, as such, we owe it to ourselves and the clientele we serve to pursue at all times the path of excellence, to develop our capabilities to the fullest, and to extend ourselves to the limit. We must bear in mind that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every possession a duty.

“I would like our firm to exemplify one of my favorite passages from Justice Holmes:

‘They carry no banners, they beat no drums; but where they are, men learn that bustle and push are not equal of quiet genius and serene mastery.’” (Excerpt from remarks of Mr. Ricardo J. Romulo, Senior Partner, on the occasion of the firm’s Anniversary in 1982.)

 Our History

ROMULO traces its roots to the law firm which Allison D. Gibbs and William Kincaid established in 1902. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Allison D. Gibbs and William Kincaid arrived in the Philippines as part of the Colorado and Nebraska volunteers, respectively. After the war, they decided to settle in the Philippines and engage in the practice of law. They hung their shingle in the business center of Manila in No. 9 Plaza Moraga.

The firm was reorganized several times until Charles McDonough was admitted into the partnership. Allison D. Gibbs’ sons, Findley and Allison J., would later join the firm as assistant attorneys while an upstart Filipino lawyer by the name of Roman Ozaeta was admitted as partner in 1931.

The firm, then known as Gibbs McDonough and Ozaeta, had an extensive practice in commercial law. It handled cases involving banking, corporation law, insurance, and public utilities. It pioneered in the law on intellectual property and successfully handled cases involving infringement of trademarks and copyright.

While Allison D. Gibbs became a well-known corporate lawyer, the firm also developed a reputation for outstanding trial work and appellate practice. Charles McDonough earned a name for himself as an outstanding trial lawyer while Roman Ozaeta earned renown for his meticulous and excellently composed pleadings and briefs.

In 1936, Roman Ozaeta resigned from the firm to become judge of the then Court of First Instance. He went on to become Solicitor General in 1938, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1941, Secretary of Justice in 1946, and again an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1948 to 1950.

After retiring from public service, Roman Ozaeta joined his son Herminio, Allan O’Gorman, and Carlos Romulo, Jr. in private practice. Following the plane crash that claimed the lives of Alan O’Gorman and Carlos Romulo, Jr. in 1957, Allison J. Gibbs joined the Ozaetas and formed the firm Ozaeta Gibbs and Ozaeta.

Carlos Romulo Jr.’s brother, Ricardo J. Romulo, would later become Senior Partner himself and, following a previous rule of practice which limited the name of a law office to those of its active and living partners, the firm was renamed Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & de los Angeles.

In October 2002, ROMULO celebrated the 100^th anniversary of its founding with the descendants of Allison D. Gibbs.

The firm handled several landmark cases, some of which developed into jurisprudence which is still studied in law schools today.

In 1910, the firm successfully won the acquittal of a fellow named Ah Chong and helped establish precedence for the use of mistake of fact sufficient to negate criminal intent [U.S. v. Ah Chong, 15 Phil 488 (1910)].

In 1926, the firm successfully challenged the constitutionality of Act No. 2792, the Chinese Bookkeeping Act, which prohibited Chinese merchants from keeping their books of account in the Chinese language. The case reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the law on the ground that it violated due process and denied Chinese merchants equal protection of the law, noting that most Chinese merchants knew only the Chinese language and the effect of the law was to keep them in the dark as to the financial condition of their business [Yu v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500 (1926)].

In 1923, Charles McDonough handled the celebrated case of Ray Conley, a police detective charged with receiving a bribe from gamblers in Manila. Through his painstaking cross-examination, Charles McDonough caught the prosecution witnesses in a web of contradictions and improbabilities and won for his client an acquittal. The case was later attributed to have caused a cabinet crisis when, following Conley’s reinstatement by Governor General Leonard Wood, department secretaries who had differences of opinion resigned en masse.

Profile Source: www.Romulo.com