𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚 di Meritxell Roca Ortega e Stefano Bianchi sulla 𝐧𝐮𝐨𝐯𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐞 𝐝𝐢 𝐏𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐨 a 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐝

There are many reasons, but I would say that probably the main strategic reason is that, as Pavia e Ansaldo, we like to offer an added value where we decide to open a foreign branch. So it's extremely important for us to have a very motivated and focused team composed of people and lawyers who are trained and rooted in the jurisdiction where we are operating. And this is the case here in Spain. We opened in Spain, in Barcelona, some years ago, and now, unexpectedly — and we are really proud and delighted of this — we are opening also Madrid.

Why I told you that this is perfectly inserted in our strategy, in our international strategy, because we all know that now the world is quite divided. There are a lot of problems, geopolitical ones and so on. We want to launch bridges, to create bonds, especially cultural bonds. And when I say culture, we are lawyers, I mean rule-of-law-oriented cultures. So we are here to do business but also to create this relationship. And if I must add something, we have to thank not only our clients that are supporting us in taking this move, but also our intergenerational team here in Madrid and Barcelona who have really chased us as partners of Pavia e Ansaldo to take this action, which is, I think, a very good one for the firm.

We are in Spain since 2016 with the office in Barcelona, and we opened with the main focus of M&A — that's my practice area in Pavia e Ansaldo since ever — cross-border M&A. We started with a small team specialized in corporate, and then we added other experts in labor, tax, and data protection. So we have a very strong team dedicated substantially to M&A, industrial, and private equity.

We decided to open in Spain because we had some roots in Spain. I had the support of my partners, being duly qualified in Spain and Italy, to start this adventure in Barcelona. The main reason was to give a service to our clients, Spanish and Italian, and creating a team of lawyers that not only are Spanish lawyers, not only know Italian as a language but also as a culture. And many of them are also duly qualified as I am. When you think of negotiating an M&A agreement, the emotional and cultural part is a very big issue. So to have a strong team, devoted, and that really knows these differences can make a huge difference on closing a deal or not. I think this is our strongest point to differentiate us from the other very good law firms in Spain.

In Madrid, of course, I think that we are doing the right moves because in this period, Europe, the European Union, and including also some other countries like Switzerland and Great Britain and so on, it's like a garden in the world — a garden in which people can really make something to change their lives, to enhance their prosperity, in the meanwhile abiding by a lot of excellent rules to change the world: environmental protection, protection of personal data, and governance inspired to gender equality principles and so on. This is something that is suffered sometimes, but today it's something that really is a mark of the values that in Europe we have. And Spain and Italy are completely on the same page in this respect. So I think that our future here, the inbound investments here and there, will be excellent in the future because there is a very solid basis for this.