Palacios & Asociados/Sercomi is a Law and Consulting Firm based in Guatemala city, Guatemala, in Central America. The Firm provides legal support in different areas in order to offer our Clients an integrated service; service that will appropriately respond to the current dynamics of the economic frame and to the globalized relations of companies and people.
The Firm provides legal general counseling and renders specialized services in Corporate and Investment Law, Mergers and Acquisitions, Central American Integration Law, counseling in International Trade Negotiations and administration and implementation of Trade agreements; Administrative and Regulatory legislation; Advertisement and Entertainment Law; Litigation (civil, criminal, constitutional); and Intellectual Property, area in which the Firm has long experience including "IP capacity building" (in this area, the Firm, through Partner Marco Palacios, was retained for the execution of a 9 year IP Project that served five Central American countries, the one was funded by USAID and administered by the Central American Economic Integration Secretariat —SIECA-; the project was successfully concluded in March 2005).
Our Firm is a member to GALA, INTA, ASIPI and IIDA and to the American Chamber of Commerce —AMCHAM/Guatemala-. We are actively involved with public policy developments (particularly legislation, investment and enforcement). At AMCHAM we have held the Chair for the Intellectual Property Committee for over three years and a Partner from the Firm represents the Chamber before the Private Sector Committee against Smuggling; a Partner of the Firm is one of the members participating in the consultation process for the development of the National Agenda for Competitiveness.
The Firm's Client Portfolio includes transnational corporations, regional —Central American- companies and domestic companies with international commercial presence. Such Portfolio is conformed by different scope of businesses such as: Pharmaceutical R&D industry, Agricultural Chemical Products R&D industry, Film industry, Software industry, Beverage —non alcoholic and alcoholic- industry; Tobacco industry; Milling industry, Food industry; Apparel, Retail; Real State and others.
The Firm is also associated with: Getting The Deal Through (Franchise); World Bank Doing Business.
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Corporate Law, Commercial Contracting, and Notarial Services |
Constitution of societies, legal services for the corporate government, and company administration; services in the financial banking, and credit area. In relation to specialized hiring, our firm assists in the elaboration and negotiation of the different commercial contracts with special attention to the ones related to distribution, supply, licenses and franchises. We have extensive experience in acquisition proceedings and partnership mergers in the entire Central American region, the Caribbean and Mexico. The firm offers complete Notarial services in both civil and commercial issues.
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Competence Right and Consumer Rights |
For these issues we have performed an alliance with the Firm “Weinstock Abogados”, with its main office in Costa Rica, covering the Central American region. Our services include analysis, preparation, and following of standards, cases before the authorized judicial and administrative authorities, as well as a complete counseling on the subject for the fulfillment of present regulations.
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Tax Law |
In order to provide a complete service in this area, we work alongside the auditing Firm “Diaz Reyes & Asociados”. With this, we can rely on a complete view of the cases, from the financial and legal point of view. We own a profound knowledge in companies’ fiscal management, for both domestic aspects and international transactions (for example, transference rates), in order to optimize the resources and faithfully comply with the juridical regulations.
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Intellectual Property |
Our Firm is one of the largest professional offices in brand management and distinctive marks, as well as the largest on the subject of patents in the Central American region. Its size is measured by the amount of cases and by the kind of clients that form its portfolio which is mainly integrated by regional and multinational companies. It provides registry services and management of regional portfolios of all Intellectual Property categories. For technical areas, our Firm relies on professional engineers that form the work team in a permanent way. In addition to this, it emphasizes the consulting and advising services in the subjects of these areas.
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Pharmaceutical Law |
As a part of intellectual property, we own a section with a direct specialty on the subjects related to medicines. Within this subjects, there are certain aspects that stand out like test management aspects and legal issues related to the process of market approval. All of this, in addition to the subject of pharmaceutical patents, makes us unique in this matter.
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Advertisement Law |
In the current world, there are a series of regulations directed to control the way that products are placed in the market for its use. Therefore, a prompt work prior to the acquisition to the asset is needed, in order to avoid any mischance in its distribution. Our Firm has been a pioneer on this subject from the legal point of view, by providing services focused on this type of technical aspects, which we perform in Central America and the Caribbean, managing product portfolios for their correct administration, teaming with professionals in the areas of chemical sciences, pharmacy and food. Within this division we also provide services for approval, advertising campaigns, promotions and marketing teams consulting.
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Litigation and Constitutional Law |
In Guatemala, constitutional law is an area that materializes, in a big part, through litigation. Our Firm provides services of legal opinion and analysis related to conflict issues and potential conflicts, taking care of litigation through the “constitutional process” (for example, sanctions, unconstitutionality of the law and juridical analysis, among others), as in the civil, penal, constitutional, administrative and tax system areas. Our litigation department also offers the service of preparation of evidence and investigations. In addition, this division team relays on their preparation in arbitration issues.
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International Commerce Law and Central American integratio |
Our firm attends to the processes that lead to the validity of bilateral commercial agreements, regional and multilaterals. In the present time, these agreements affect permanently companies’ competitiveness, and determine their possibilities to join or even stay on the market. The mechanisms generated on the agreements, such as Safeguards, Disloyal Practices and the procedures for the solution of controversies, are directly a part of our activity. Also, we prepare and follow up the commercial activities, to be able to achieve the goals set by the interests of our clients. For this, we manage detailed and appropriate information generated on the subject, so that our clients can keep up to date with the affectations that may occur. Also, the Firm performs analysis tasks to understand better the changes that may come due to new regulations or the way that these may bring benefits, emphasizing on the matters of market access, rules of origin, health measures and technical standardization. |
