Oscar José Torres Cañas

Practice Areas

Oscar Torres is Managing Partner of García & Bodán El Salvador, Regional Director of the Labor practice area and member of the Corporate and Transactional practice area of the firm.

With over 17 years of experience, he has participated in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, restructuring and corporate advisory, as well as banking and financial transactions. He has served as counsel to major international companies in various sectors of the economy. Furthermore, he participates actively in matters related to conflicts between shareholders and public tenders.

He has extensive experience in judicial and extrajudicial debt restructuring, as well as the resolution of other financial matters, including the debtors and creditors representation.

The main practice areas in which Oscar provides advice are labor and corporate, helping companies to establish and operate correctly in El Salvador.

Practice areas:

- Corporate-Commercial

- Transactional

- Merges and Acquisitions

- Aeronautic

- Free Zones

- Trust

- Anti-Trust

- Labor

- Social Security

Professional Memberships

- International Bar Association (IBA).

- Chairman of the Legal Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of El Salvador (AmCham).

Publications

- Contribution in Annual Report of World Bank and the International Finance Corporation “Doing Business”, 2012-2020.

- Contribution in World Justice Project “Rule of Law Index”, 2017-2020.

- Contribution in Report of World Bank and the International Finance Corporation “Women, Business and the Law”, 2014.

Work Highlights

- Counseled First Cash Financial Services, a US-based leading pawn house company, in their USD 7 million acquisition of Maxiprenda El Salvador, S.A. de C.V., a pawn house company with operations in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.

- Legal advice and assistance to ThermaSource, a leading US-based international provider of services in the geothermal energy sector, in the formation of a new company in El Salvador. As a result, the client was counseled in the establishment of an industrial pledge for USD 12 million in order to ensure the credit obligation with the lender.

- Legal advice and assistance to ThermaSource and its local company ThermaSource El Salvador, Ltda. de C.V. in the negotiation and formalization of a purchase sale agreement for USD 1.5 million with Perforadora Santa Barbara of drilling rig equipment in accordance with Salvadoran law. In addition, the industrial pledge was released.

- Advised Proyecto Bodegas El Salvador with a project for the construction of a USD 12 million warehouse complex.

- Assisted Grupo Ecos and SI Capital in the acquisition of a minority stake in Escotel Investments, S.A., an investment vehicle of Enertika, an engineering company based in Spain, and world leader in power generation and energy efficiency projects. The advice was provided in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

- Advised and assisted Aerovías de Mexico, S.A. known as Aeroméxico, the biggest airline in the Mexican United States, for the commencement of operations in the rout MEX-SAL-MEX. Nowadays, we advised Aeroméxico in all tax and corporate matters.

- Represented the client, a leading US-based multinational company, in the defense against a USD 3.5 million lawsuit filed by one of their distributors for alleged breach of the distribution contract.

- Assisted Hoteles Hilton Princess de Centroamérica in the granting of important credits from lender Scotiabank El Salvador for infrastructure expansion to consolidate and expand its operations in Central America.

- Assisted the client, a leading Brazilian company in the manufacture of buses, in the financing of the Integrated Transport System of the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador.

- Assisted Pan American Insurance Company in different legal matters.

Languages Spoken

Spanish

English

Italian

Education

Awards