Veículo: Global Competition Review (GCR)
Data: 23/5/2018

Competition practices in Latin America, Europe, and Asia have been created and promoted new partners, while a prominent antitrust lawyer in Europe has retired.

Cardim co-founds new Brazilian firm

Fabricio Cardim, formerly at Stocche Forbes, has helped to establish Souza Mello e Torres advogados, which opened on 16 April. Cardim, 35, now heads Souza Mello e Torres’s antitrust and compliance practice, which includes two associates and two interns. He will handle all aspects of competition, but given the overall firm’s emphasis on M&A and the return of deal financing to Brazil, he expects to focus initially on merger review.

He and the other partners saw an opportunity in the mid-size firm market as they aim to “preserve a close relationship with clients and to provide high quality legal services”, Cardim said. “The mid-size market is a great opportunity in Brazil now, specially for those lawyers who had previous international experience and worked at big law firms’ structures in the past, such as all our partners did. We believe our clients will be better served with this new platform,” he said.

Cardim has 15 years of experience representing Brazilian and foreign companies in relation to a wide range of competition law matters, including collaborative, horizontal and vertical arrangements, compliance programmes, high-profile international and local cartel and anti-corruption investigations, unilateral conduct cases and numerous merger control filings before the Brazilian antitrust uthorities.
He assisted chemical manufacturer Unipar in its acquisition of Solvay Indupa, approved by Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defence in 2017. He also represented Tarpon Investimento in its acquisition of Dental Cremer, which involved the two largest competitors in the market for distribution of dental products and services in Brazil. Stocche Forbes Advogados antitrust head Paulo Casagrande says Cardim left alone and on amicable terms.

“Our firm’s antitrust and compliance team does not plan to hire a replacement, because it is very well structured and equipped to advise our clients in key merger filings, governmental and internal investigations and deal advice, alongside the newly established white-collar crime practice,” Casagrande said. “We wish Fabricio well in his new endeavours.”

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