Ganado Advocates

Managing Partner: Andre Zerafa

Number of partners: 22

Number of fee-earners: 90+ (incl. partners)

Total number of staff: 170+

Firm overview:

Ganado Advocates is a leading commercial law firm with a particular focus on the corporate, financial services and maritime /aviation sectors, predominantly servicing international clients doing business through Malta. The firm also promotes other areas such as tax, pensions, intellectual property, employment and litigation. The firm traces its roots back to the early 1900s and is today one of Malta’s foremost law practices, consistently ranking as a leading firm in all its core sectors. Ganado Advocates has over the past decades contributed directly towards creating and enhancing Malta’s hard-won reputation as a reliable and effective international centre for financial and maritime services. Today, the firm continues to provide high standards of legal advisory services to support and enhance Malta’s offering.

Main areas of practice:

■ Financial services

■ Corporate, M&A & capital markets

■ Shipping, yachting & aviation

■ Litigation & dispute resolution

■ Corporate finance & tax

■ Private client, trusts & foundations

■ Labour & employment

■ Environment, energy & renewable energy

■ Intellectual property, media, entertainment & technology

■ Competition/European

■ Construction

Financial services:

The firm’s financial services and regulatory practices are internationally renowned as country leaders. This practice grouping encompasses the firm’s industry-focused teams servicing asset managers and their funds, banks, insurers and reinsurers, pension schemes and funds, investment firms, payment service providers, e-money institutions, fintech operators, blockchain and cryptocurrency service providers, trade finance institutions and other operators in the financial services sphere. The practice covers all corporate, regulatory and transactional work and, in conjunction with lawyers from other practice areas, litigation, dispute resolution, tax and regulatory.

Key Contacts: Matthew Bianchi, Andre Zerafa, Conrad Portanier, James Farrugia, Matthew Brincat, Leonard Bonello, Marina Grech

Corporate, M&A & capital markets:

The firm regularly advises on major corporate and capital market

ts transactions in Malta, for the benefit of international corporate groups and private equity firms. This practice provides the full range of transactional corporate legal services, having long-standing experience in assisting foreign clients in establishing local presence across all commercial sectors. The firm also operates a corporate services and governance team focused in particular on supporting the boards of both regulated and non-regulated businesses.

Key Contacts: Stephen Attard, Nikolai Muscut Farrugia, Simon Schembri, Nicholas Curmi, Annalise Papa

Shipping, yachting & aviation:

Ship registration, ship finance and admiralty law are at the heart of the firm’s maritime law practice. The firm was a pioneer in this field and its specialist maritime lawyers hold leading industry expertise and provide dependable support and advice, making the firm amongst the most established in this area. While very active in the yacht and superyacht space, the firm was also a prime mover in the development of local aviation law; today it regularly advises aircraft financiers, owners, lessors and operators.

Key Contacts: Karl Grech Orr, Jotham Scerri-Diacono, Daniel Aquilina, Christine Cassar Naudi, Matthew Attard, Matthew Xerri

Litigation & dispute resolution:

Traditionally prominent in commercial and civil litigation, the firm has represented clients in some of Malta's largest and most complex commercial and maritime litigation. This includes arrests and judicial sales of vessels, salvage and other maritime disputes, corporate and financial services, and insurance claims. Today, the firm also offers highly specialised litigation in the fields of corporate disputes, insolvency, intellectual property, public procurement, competition law, funds, press law and international arbitration.

Key Contact: Antoine G Cremona

Corporate finance & tax:

Ganado Advocates has one of the largest and longest-established tax practices amongst Maltese law firms. The firm’s multidisciplinary team of legal and tax specialists regularly advises corporate and individual high-net-worth clients, both international and local, on all aspects of Maltese tax legislation and their impact, whether at structuring stage, transactional or on an ongoing basis.

Key Contacts: Stephen Attard, Christine Cassar Naudi

Private client, trusts & foundations:

Regularly involved in structuring and providing general legal advice on trusts and foundations, the firm actively provides ongoing assistance to various Maltese-based (local and international) trustees, administrators of foundations and other fiduciaries on regulatory aspects of their fiduciary activities. It regularly assists private clients with their various legal needs, ranging from estate planning to setting up the appropriate trustees for them (which includes private trust companies). This includes, where required, the acquisition of Maltese citizenship by naturalisation for exceptional services by direct investment, as a second citizenship.

Key Contact: Anthony Cremona

Labour & employment:

This practice encompasses the full range of employment services, including advice on litigious and non-litigious employment law matters, industrial relations, employment benefits and pensions. While having a practice in its own right, the employment team also provides invaluable support to the other teams within the firm on transactions which span a broad range of areas, such as M&A transactions.

Key Contact: Matthew Brincat

Environment, energy & renewable energy:

Ganado Advocates has been at the forefront of the significant developments in this dynamic and ever-changing sector in Malta and advises a wide variety of clients on both regulatory and commercial issues, including drafting and negotiating power purchase agreements, assisting with public procurement, implementing EU Directives into local law and advising on ship-sourced pollution issues. The firm has also experienced increasing interest from industry stakeholders acting as intermediaries in the recycling of hazardous waste on account of Malta’s central Mediterranean location, its ratification of the most important environmental Conventions and an efficient and proactive regulator.

Key Contacts: Jotham Scerri-Diacono, Antoine G Cremona

Intellectual property, media, entertainment & technology:

The firm advises clients on the full range of contentious and non-contentious issues in the technology, media and entertainment space. Services include the registration of trademarks, advice on and drafting of IP agreements, and representing clients in IP infringement lawsuits. The firm leads a project for the Government of Malta bringing together the various Malta-based legal and advisory service providers with a view to overhauling the current IP legal framework and providing solid and innovative legislative solutions to the IP industries, not least involving blockchain and digital currencies. The team also leads the firm’s privacy law practice, assisting all clients with their ongoing GDPR requirements, including data subject requests and investigations by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner. In the media space, the team regularly advises and assists, including through the legal representation in Court, key local players on legal matters relating to journalistic freedoms, freedom of information and defamation.

Key Contact: Paul Micallef Grimaud

Competition/European:

The firm’s competition and EU law practitioners have gained substantial recognition in this field, advising clients and public authorities in all industry sectors serviced by the firm and frequently also engaging in privatisations and public procurement processes. Besides regularly providing advice on antitrust issues affecting agreements between undertakings and abuse of dominance, merger control and State aid law, the firm often represents undertakings in competition investigations and litigation as well as merger notifications.

Key Contacts: Antoine G Cremona, Sylvann Aquilina Zahra

Construction:

The firm has one of the leading international construction law practices in Malta with specialist focus on FIDIC contracts and construction arbitration. Lawyers practising in this area have specific academic qualifications in international construction contracts and construction dispute resolution. The firm has assisted developers, financiers, contractors and engineers in a significant number and across a wide range of large-scale construction projects in Malta, from major infrastructural works, to waste management and recycling plants, hospitality, residential and marina developments. The firm also regularly assists in all matters relating to real estate and in the design and execution of procurement models for major construction works.

Key Contact: Antoine G Cremona