Legal
Services
Tax Law
At Leyva, we provide our clients with legal counsel regarding the various tax regulations affecting their businesses and personal affairs and provide them with support and representation before the corresponding authorities for all relevant administrative formalities. We also guide them on tax matters relating to hiring, business negotiations, mergers, and project structuring, among many other tax issues. Likewise, we provide succession planning support and the reorganization of family businesses and equities, and tax guidance on estate planning.
Corporate Law
To our clients, Leyva provides ongoing counsel in corporate concerns, including all aspects of corporate law, contracts, copyrights, and commercial law in general.
Likewise, Leyva counsels clients in all issues pertaining to due diligence and the drafting of all legal documents for the purchase or sale of business or commercial establishments, business reorganizations, shareholder agreements, family protocols, incorporation or liquidation of a business, transaction contracts, conciliation, and arbitration agreements, among many corporate issues.
Infrastructure
We provide our customers advisory and ongoing counsel in infrastructure projects, including issues relating to local and international hiring, concession contracts, EPC contracts, operation and maintenance contracts, financing agreements, consortium agreements, among many.
To date, the firm has counseled Mexican, Spanish and French companies in projects such as navigation in the Magdalena River; the Control Tower of the El Dorado Airport; El Salitre wastewater treatment plant; transient operation of the Santa Marta Aqueduct; the operation, expansion, and maintenance of an Aqueduct of a Municipality of 1,000,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, Leyva led one of the prequalified consortia in the international bidding process for the first line of the Metro of Bogotá.
UGPP
Given the relevance the Pension and Parafiscal Management Unit (UGPP for its Spanish acronym) has acquired in recent years, Leyva not only provides its clients expertise in payroll/compliance audits but also offers comprehensive advisory to both individuals and businesses to ensure all social security risks and contingencies are addressed and controlled.
Insolvency
In Colombia, the corporate insolvency regime is regulated by Law 1116 of 2006. The latter seeks to protect the company, under the premise that it is a production unit and generates employment. If your company faces liquidity complications but remains viable, in Leyva we can advise how to establish an agreement so you can honor your commitments with creditors, seeking new sources of liquidity.
Foreign
investment
We understand the needs a globalized world requires. Therefore, we offer our clients effective counsel regarding the currency exchange regime in Colombia, together with indispensable advice in negotiations and transactions before the competent authorities to ensure full compliance with the laws regulating this area.
Renewable
Energy
Law 1715 of 2014 included tax benefits for non-conventional energy projects. Because the country’s energy matrix relies mostly – eighty-five percent – on water sources, Colombia needs to vary its matrix to find other generation sources, which in origin are precisely opposite to the hydric phenomena, and can therefore be employed in times of rain scarcity.
Leyva has addressed this need by counseling clients from various countries in structuring renewable projects, drafting PPA contracts and contract variations that can be more fiscally advantageous.
Medical
Cannabis
Resolutions 577, 578, and 579 of August 8, 2017, issued by the Ministry of Justice and Law, regulated that related to (a) the evaluation and oversight of licenses for the use of cannabis seeds and cultivation of plants; (b) the amount of the fees for evaluation and oversight services for these licenses; and (c) the defining criteria regarding small and medium national cannabis producers. In other words, in this manner, the National Government regulated the medical cannabis sector.
Leyva has structured medicinal cannabis projects from the onset, through the company’s incorporation (special purpose vehicle), the procedure for license application, financing agreements, and contracts of mandate negotiations, among others.
Labor Law
Due to the importance of good internal corporate relations in order to generate and maintain employment, Leyva provides timely counsel to our clients in all matters related to Labor Law and Social Security.
Pro Bono
In Leyva, we firmly believe that development must be based on sharing our experience and capacity with communities that require legal services and do not have the economic means to pay for such services. This is why we render our services on a pro bono basis to different organizations and foundations, among which are:
