What We Do

Strategic Litigation and Arbitration

PVS Advogados combines with a rare balance the experience, sobriety, and accuracy of career judges retired from the courts of Rio de Janeiro and admired by their peers with the dynamism, the intensity, the business focus, and the creativity of professionals renowned in the private legal practice from the main boards in the country.

PVS Advogados performs in strategic causes, in a handcrafted manner, developing a work of court intelligence with great accuracy and efficiency, allied with a magnificent legal technique.

The team of PVS Advogados also has a vast experience and works intensely in sophisticated domestic and international arbitrations, both institutional, before the main centers (ICC, AAA, ICSID, CCBC, CIESP/FIESP, CBMA, Amcham, FGV, ect), and ad hoc.

PVS Advogados represents clients in several branches of Law, such as Business Law, Company Law, Contract Law, Civil Liability, Consumer Protection, Recovery of Assets, Tax Compensation, Real Estate Law, Probate Law, Family Law, Copyright and Trademarks, Mining Law, in addition to practicing in litigations involving entities of private retirement plans and their sponsors or participants.

Business Law

PVS Advogados is also distinguished for providing sophisticated and comprehensive corporate assistance, aiding clients in the organization and dissolution of all kinds of companies; in the conduction of acts inherent with the company routine (meeting of members, meeting of board of directors, meetings of shareholders, communications, calls, etc.); in the planning and restructuring of companies and business groups, preparation of shareholders/members agreements, voting arrangements, assistance in consolidations, mergers, split-ups, etc. The firm is also specialized in property protection for companies.

PVS Advogados has a team of lawyers with vast experience in company litigations, representing shareholders (either majority or minority), managers, damaged third parties, or the company itself.

Contract Law

The law firm has a specialized team which has a vast experience in the drafting, negotiation, and rescission of commercial or civil contracts - such as distribution agreements and commercial agency agreements, service agreements, lease agreements, purchase and sale of personal property and real estate, purchase and sale of shares, establishment of secured interests or personal guarantees, construction agreements by administration, constructor, lease, EPC contracts, etc.

Dispute Prevention, Negotiation, Mediation, and System Design

With academic and practical experience in Brazil and abroad, the specialists of PVS Advogados combine their broad knowledge and the full control of the techniques of conduction of alternative forms of dispute resolution, especially the negotiation and the mediation.


With mediators trained in the country and abroad, as well as smart and experienced bilingual negotiators, PVS Advogados also performs in the conflict mediation.

PBVS Advogados professionals also practice intensely in the dispute prevention, by means of the design and development of system of dispute prevention in the business, civil, and labor areas, as well as in the due diligence and review of litigation, with the objective of reducing the number of pending lawsuits.

Insurance, Reinsurance, and Supplementary Retirement Plan

The areas of insurance, reinsurance, supplementary retirement plan (open and closed) and supplemental health care are among the main practice areas and specializations of the law firm. With bilingual lawyers (Portuguese and English), with a solid academic experience in Brazil, United States, and United Kingdom, and decades of practical experience in both domestic and international issues, PVS Advogados provides an unparalleled level of assistance to the insured, insurance takers, stipulators, beneficiaries, and beneficiaries, including as clients some of the biggest companies in Brazil and natural persons, as well as companies of all sizes, foundations, associations, among others.

PVS Advogados assists clients in the mapping of risks and identification of coverages in the Brazilian market prior to the acquisition; in the review of clause of policies and insurance and health care plans, individual or collective; in all stages related to losses, assisting clients in the interaction with the insurance companies and regulators of losses, in how to behave or not to behave; as well as in litigations against insurance companies, health insurance operators, and entities of supplementary retirement plans.

Tax Law

PVS Advogados offers a great variety of services in the areas of Tax and Financial Law. Our performance includes consultancy and litigation in several aspects. We are specialized in tax planning and litigation in the administrative and judicial instances, performing in the recovery, declaration of exemption and compensation of taxes, responses to tax-deficiency notices and annulments of tax administrative acts, in the withdrawals of judicial and appellate deposits, among several other issues.

PVS Advogados assists several foreign and national clients in international negotiations and contracts, in the definition of models and strategies of entry or penetration into the Brazilian market, in the establishment of subsidiaries in Brazil in the most diverse sectors, in the international purchase and sale of merchandise, as well as other import and export transactions, in the relation with supporting banks and multilateral organisms, etc.

International Law (Public and Private)

The members of PVS Advogados have a practical experience in several kinds of international disputes, having been searched and having provided statements, as well as acting as expert witnesses, with the purpose of clarifying the legal treatment of the Brazilian Law in certain issues in litigations before foreign courts.

Labor Law

PVS Advogados assists companies in the most diverse economic sectors in strategic labor issues, including, but not limited to, individual complaints; public civil actions and collective actions; collective bargaining with Unions and class entities; development of compensation and benefit programs; consultancy in occupational health and medicine (health, Safety & Environment – HSE); management of parties in litigation; review of labor practices and policies of companies; administrative litigation in issues related to the inspection of the Regional Superintendences of Labor and Employment, Regional Departments of Labor and Labor Prosecution.

Administrative Law

PVS Advogados assists clients in the viability, licensing, and grants in general for several kinds of undertakings. We help the clients during all stages of the bidding procedures and in the execution of contracts with the government, providing consultancy and assistance in proceedings pending at the State and Municipal authorities and in federal agencies.

We also help a great variety of publicly-held companies (state-controlled companies and state-owned companies) in several aspects (corporate, civil, compliance, etc.).

The PVS Advogados team has a vast experience in the defense of public and private agents in dishonesty suits and public civil actions of reimbursement.

Election Law

Election Law is the branch of Public Law whose main function is to regulate the election process and the political rights, especially those regarding the right to vote and to be voted.

Pimentel, Vega, Smilgin, Souza e Lima has professionals specialized in the legal conduction of the election process, assisting the candidates and political parties in the inspection of the election registration.

Oil and Gas

The PVS Advogados professionals assists clients which are leaders in the oil, natural gas, and biofuel industries, as well as in their extensive chain of suppliers, service providers, and subcontractors.

The performance of the law firm includes all segments of the sector (upstream, midstream, and downstream) in strategic, contractual (joint ventures, consortia in general, farm-in and farm-out contracts, etc.), and regulatory consultancy; achievement of grants (concessions, permits, and authorizations, etc.) and licenses, as well as in the administrative litigation before the Oil, Natural Gas, and Biofuel National Agency – ANP and related litigation.

Electricity

PVS Advogados assists clients in several segments of the electric sector – generation, transmission, distribution, marketing, use, ect. - in their transactions, contracts, achievement of grants and licensing, helps in the planning of projects and in the preparation for auctions of energy, as well as in the interaction with public authorities. In addition to that, the law firm assists clients in regulatory/administrative aspects, administrative litigation before the Electricity National Agency – ANEEL and also in the litigation in technical issues related to the electric sector.

Tourism Law

The PVS Advogados team provides intense assistance to the companies of the sector of tourism (especially hotel groups, hotel managing companies, and tourist agencies and operators), including those established online, guiding its clients in a comprehensive manner, in all legal aspects inherent in the exercise of their activities, from the organization of the company - including assistance in the gathering of resources and possible partners -, legalization, commercial practices, corporate acts, and drafting of several contracts, adapting them to the rules regulating the sector.

Real Estate Law

PVS Advogados has one of the most experienced teams in the market of urban or rural real estate transactions - from residential and non-residential leases, built-to-suit contracts, leases, sale of forest assets, contracts of agricultural partnership, purchase and sale of real estate, sale-lease-back, fiduciary sale, real estate mergers, consolidations, and acquisitions of real estate assets, shopping malls, establishment of secured interests (usufruct, emphyteusis, surface right, etc.), judicial and out-of-court acquisitive prescription, rural and urban, installation of great enterprises and industrial parks, expropriation, and issuance of real estate instruments in the stock market.

Probate and Family Law

Acting in an integrated manner with the tax, company, civil, and litigation areas, the team of Probate Law of PVS Advogados las a vast experience in probate planning, judicial and extrajudicial probate proceedings, distribution of property, drafting, execution, and challenge of will and codicils, defense of the interests of heirs and legatees.

With experienced lawyers and retired judges with a distinguished practice in Family Courts in its team, PVS Advogados assists clients in consulting and litigation issues related to the family law, such as acknowledgment of cohabitation, separation, judicial and out-of-court divorce, dissolution of cohabitation, preparation of prenuptial agreement and declarations of cohabitation, matrimonial regime, custody dispute, child support and alimony (establishment, review, and execution) and related disputes, regulation of visitations, interdiction actions, paternity investigation, homoaffective rights, adoption action, among others.