Mattos Engelberg hires white-collar crime partner from boutique

Mattos Engelberg hires white-collar crime partner from boutique

Mattos Engelberg Advogados has made two new partners, hiring one from now-defunct criminal law boutique Cavalcanti & Arruda Botelho Advogados to boost its white-collar crime efforts, and promoting a lawyer in its tax practice.

Paula Lima Hyppolio Oliveira joined from the firm formerly known as Cavalcanti & Arruda Botelho Advogados (which has recently split in two).

She joins partners Conrado Donati Antunes and Paulo Victor Marcondes at the helm of the corporate crime department. The team advises on various matters, including environmental, tax and economic crimes, as well as cartel investigations, public bidding fraud and plea bargain investigations.

Lima says she is looking forward to working alongside colleagues in various practice areas. “Today the rapid exchange of knowledge with other fields of law is fundamental for the client.”

Mattos Engelberg’s hire is part of a broader trend that has seen corporate firms in Brazil invest in criminal law, in response to the evolution of legislation and the prominence of corporate crimes in the country in the last few years.

In addition to hiring Lima, Mattos Engelberg has promoted former associate Paula Beatriz Loureiro Pires to partner. Pires focuses on asset management and succession planning. She will work alongside tax partners Adelmor Gheler, Gabriel Nascimento and Paulo Sigaud.

Both new lawyers are based in São Paulo. Their hires were effective on 26 August and bring Mattos Engelberg’s partner count to 23. Two labour partners recently left to found their own boutique.

Formed in 2016, Mattos Engelberg has rapidly expanded since its formation in 2016 with 12 partners. It has offices in São Paulo, Brasília, Salvador, Ribeirão Preto, Rio Brilhante as well as an outpost in Shanghai, China. Its core areas are corporate, litigation, tax, labour, trade, banking and antitrust law.

Cavalcanti & Arruda Botelho Advogados was one of several firms that frequently worked alongside now-deceased well-known lawyer and former minister of justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, who coordinated several top strategic cases, distributing them among a few different firms, including Cavalcanti & Arruda. The firm recently underwent a “comprehensive reorganisation” according to partner Dora Cavalcanti, resulting in the creation of two new criminal law boutiques and Lima’s departure to Mattos Engelberg. Cavalcanti herself joined partners Paula Sion and Bruno Salles to form Cavalcanti, Sion e Salles Advogados Associados. The firm has a team of 10 lawyers. The new firm’s lawyers will also dedicate part of their time to social initiatives such as the Innocent Project Brasil and the Institute for Defense of the Right of Defense, IDDD.

The other firm resulting from the split is Arruda Botelho Sociedade de Advogados, led by partner Augusto de Arruda Botelho. Botelho says his new firm will maintain a small number of lawyers so partners can be personally involved in every case. Both new firms are based in São Paulo.

Fonte: LatinLawyer