Cruz Vilaça Advogados has opened its office in Lisbon. The firm, located on Avenida Duque de Ávila, focuses its activity on EU law, competition law and fundamental rights.

With regard to its main objective, Cruz Vilaça Advogados “is committed to seeking innovative solutions that are tailored to the challenges inherent in its areas of expertise, in particular, those represented by the current transition phase of Europe and the modern world (digital, energy, environment and Brexit) ”, notes the firm.

To achieve this goal, the law firm brought together a team with international experience, including lawyers Carla Farinhas and Mariana Martins Pereira and consultants José Guilherme Xavier de Basto, José Carlos Vieira de Andrade, Francisco Costa-Cabral and Franziska Zibold.

Paulo de Almeida Sande, lawyer and former director of the European Parliament's office in Portugal, is the strategic advisor to the firm.

“This project is special. It has begun to take shape already in Luxembourg and comes at a time when I could be finishing and not starting new projects, but we think that it would be unreasonable to waste the rich experience of the last six years at the Court of Justice of the European Union”, pointed out the managing partner of the firm, José Luís da Cruz Vilaça.

He also recognizes that in Portugal “there are great law firms” and adds that Cruz Vilaça Advogados wishes to establish itself as a “specialized boutique” that “practices law in a different way” with the “ability to adapt to the demands of the market”.