Guzmán Ariza, Attorneys at Law

Guzmán Ariza has always had a large focus on individual clients and their legal needs. We know the challenges individual clients, whether local or foreign, face during the course of their lives and are prepared to counsel them on all their legal issues, whether they relate to purchasing real estate properties in Dominican territory, to estate planning, and personal services such as wills or adoptions.

Guzmán Ariza has eight offices located in the main cities and tourist areas of the Dominican Republic, which makes it the only law firm capable of offering personalized legal assistance to individuals needing their lawyers to be near and accessible not only in Santo Domingo, the capital, but also where they may reside or vacation. We give special attention to closely communicating with our clients and understanding the issues that concern them in order to render the best legal service they deserve.

In this area, we handle the following legal matters:

• Estate planning
• Adoptions
• Custody disputes
• Pre-nuptial agreements
• Divorces and special quick divorces
• Child support claims
• Inheritance claims
• Powers of Attorney
• Changes in civil status certificates such as names, surnames or dates
• Wills and Probate

For more information, go to our publications on Family Law and Individual Legal Services.

Real Estate and Condominium Law

Guzmán Ariza’s real estate department is unsurpassed in its skill, experience and geographical reach. With eight offices throughout the island, we advise more clients in more transactions and locations than any other law firm in the Dominican Republic. Our top-ranked department works as a cohesive team with other disciplines, including tax, financing, environment, and litigation to ensure that all issues that could impact a transaction are properly and thoroughly addressed.

Our name partner, Fabio J. Guzman Ariza, has published the only annotated versions of both the Dominican real estate and condominium statutes.

In addition, it is important to note that most real estate transactions, especially in the tourism industry, take place in regions far away from the country's capital city of Santo Domingo, which is not a major tourist destination. For this reason, the fact that we have offices in Santo Domingo and in every developed tourist destination - where they are generally the largest - give us a decisive competitive advantage over other firms, since we can provide clients in those regions with more cost-efficient and timely service than our competitors, not to mention that our lawyers are open to many local issues ignored by our colleagues in other firms.

Our capabilities span all aspects of the real estate industry, including the following:

• Due diligence
• Purchase and sale of commercial and residential properties
• Purchase and sale of developments and hotels
• Financing
• Condominiums and Homeowner Associations
• Tax incentives for real estate developments
• Land use regulation
• Environmental feasibility
• Rental / lease agreements
• Brokerage arrangements
• Timeshare projects
• Condominiums and owners' associations
• Foreclosures and evictions
• Real estate-related litigation
• REITs
• Title insurance
• Boundaries, easements and rights of way
• Mortgages
• Links
• Construction contracts
• Expropriation (eminent domain)
• Property management

For more information, go to our publications on  Real Estate and Condominiums.

Restructuring and Bankruptcy

Guzmán Ariza Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Insolvency attorneys represent clients at every level of the capital structure, both in court and in connection with out-of-court restructurings and transactions. Members of the firm’s bankruptcy practice are as adept at restructuring debtors and preserving the interests of equity holders as they are in pursuing the rights of senior lenders. The group’s experience extends to representing asset acquirers, parties to fiduciary duty litigation and foreign representatives seeking Dominican Republic recognition and pursuing enforcement actions.

Our team has a wealth of experience advising on complex restructurings, including some of the most high-profile transactions in the country. We combine a commercial approach with technical expertise and work in partnership with our clients to navigate the legal, political and business landscapes in which they operate. We work closely with other practice groups, leveraging expertise across products, sectors and industries to provide innovative and effective advice.

We have broad market sector knowledge in finance, real estate, transportation, hospitality, energy, food and beverage, communications, technology and manufacturing.

Corporate and Business

Guzmán Ariza has extensive experience counseling clients, both commercial entities and individuals, in all stages of their business ventures in the Dominican Republic, the largest economy of Central America and the Caribbean.  As such, our team of lawyers advise local and international clients in organizing start-ups, managing risks while growing in the local or international markets, incorporating new partners into their ventures, seeking funding for expanding operations, or just helping them in complying with all local laws that relate to doing business in the Dominican Republic.

Our expert team of lawyers can offer you a broad spectrum of services:

• Incorporation of Dominican companies
• Incorporation of offshore companies
• Bankruptcy and restructuring
• Installation of branches in the Dominican Republic
• Joint ventures
• Corporate governance
• Annual and extraordinary shareholders and partners meetings
• Management duties and liabilities
• Business and corporate acquisitions
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Divestments
• Due diligence
• Private and public offerings of securities
• Liquidation and dissolution of companies
• Business contracts (distribution agreements, franchises)
• General advice on corporate structures to ensure good corporate governance throughout the life of your business

For more information, go to our publications on Corporate and Business.

Intellectual Property

We advise and counsel our clients on:

• Trademarks and tradenames.
• Registration of marks (word mark, mixed mark, figurative marks, smells, sounds, 3D, colour, among others).
• Monitoring of marks and brand portfolios.
• Renewal of Trademark Registrations.
• Assignment and Licensing.
• Portfolio Management.
• Defenses against Official Objections or Third-Party oppositions and Cancellation process.
• Legal resources, administrative and judicial phase.
• Global registrations.

Patents

• Submission of patent registration applications.
• Drafting of patents specifications.
• Patent Opposition: Pre-Grant, Post-Grant.
• Registration of contracts and licenses for the use of patents. - Payment of annuities or patent maintenance fees.
• Patent writing, preparation of descriptions, claims and drawings of patents.
• Prior art search and patent search and research and preparation of patentability, commercial viability and technological surveillance reports.
• Annuity maintenance and patent portfolio management.
• Presentation of legal actions in administrative and judicial phase to guarantee the rights of our clients and to pursue acts of unfair competition.
• Patent Litigation

Industrial Design

• Registration- Filing and Prosecution: National, Global.
• Search.
• Infringement Watch, Analysis & Reporting.
• Renewal, Maintenance and Portfolio Management.

Sanitary

• Sanitary Registration procedures.
• Sanitary records of medicines, foods, cosmetics, medical devices and hygiene products for the home.
• Renewal of health records.
• Representations before regulatory authorities in the Dominican Republic.
• Consultancies for obtaining pharmaceutical distributor licenses.

Copyrights

• Submission of requests for records of works protected by Copyright.
• Contract registration. License registration.
• Infringement & Piracy Prevention: Software and Apps, Film, Video, Music, Art.
• Presentation of legal remedies for copyright infringement.
• Copyright enforcement and defensive activities globally.

IP management and IP audit

• Portfolio Management & Maintenance.
• Due Diligence.
• IP Audits.
• IT Infrastructure, Software & Infringement Audits.
• Search, watch & vigilance Services.
• IP acquisitions (Portfolio).
• Technology transfer, licensing, assignments etc.
• Drafting of Agreements.

Litigation

• IP disputes and Litigation.
• Infringement procedures.
• Counterfeiting border measures.

Other Services

• Trade secrets and trade secret protection.
• Purchase, sale, and licensing of IP rights.
• Advertising and Marketing IP rights.
• Manufacturing and distributions agreements.
• Franchising.
• Data Protection, Privacy and Security.
• Fintech technologies protection.
• E-Commerce.
• Intellectual Property and Technology
• Cybersecurity Incidents

For more information, go to our publications on Intellectual Property.

Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

At Guzmán Ariza, we have a large team of lawyers with extensive litigation experience to handle all disputes our clients may find themselves involved in before local courts, once all negotiations and alternative solutions have been explored, expended or discarded. Our litigation team has a reputation for fast and cost-effective service and for exploring and providing helpful strategies to better reach the client's goals in a litigation scenario.

We also believe that Alternative Dispute Resolution is a very important part of our law practice and we advise our clients on procedural issues and negotiation strategies to enable them to achieve the best results, whether within the dispute process or through negotiation tactics and settlements. Our firm handles all types of alternative dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation, international or local arbitration, and other processes that may be specified by specific local laws on the matter.

Attorneys in our law firm have also served extensively as experts in litigation involving the application of Dominican law in foreign jurisdictions. Our name partner, Fabio J. Guzmán Ariza, and partners Alfredo Guzmán Saladín and Julio Brea Guzmán have submitted numerous affidavits and opinions on Dominican law to courts in the United States and Europe, and have served as expert witness on Dominican Law before courts in the United States and Canada.

Guzmán Ariza can provide legal assistance and represent clients in the following areas:

• Civil and commercial litigation
• Real estate litigation
• Labor litigation
• Criminal litigation
• IP litigation
• Insurance claims
• Family practice dispute resolution
• International and local arbitration
• Expert witness
• Mediation
• Local and international debt collections

For more information, go to our publications on Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Labor Law

Guzmán Ariza has an experienced group of lawyers who can advise corporate clients, operating or in the process of starting operations in the Dominican Republic, on all matters concerning local labor laws. We offer our clients the following services:

• Drafting and executing all types of employment contracts.
• Compliance with labor-related obligations.
• Negotiation with labor unions and drafting of collective bargaining agreements.
• Legal at the time of termination of employment advice,
• Advice regarding payroll deductions and withholdings.
• Legal representation in cases of labor claims in all phases of the process or litigation.
   

For more information, go to our publications on Labor Law.

Immigration

At Guzmán Ariza we have the premier immigration department of any Dominican law firm. We handle the entire spectrum of immigration matters, from employment-based visas and residencies to retiree and investor immigration and naturalization. We have deep experience working with applicants from a wide variety of nationalities and backgrounds, both as individuals and as representatives of international businesses in the Dominican Republic. We are proud to have some of the largest companies in the world as clients. Our comprehensive immigration services encompass all aspects of immigration law, including the following:

• Special short-stay permits
• Temporary labor-based permits
• Temporary residency permits
• Temporary labor-based residency permits
• Permanent residency applications
• Renewal of residency cards
• Investment-based residency permits
• Retirement-based residency permits
• Pension-based residency permits
• Change of residency categories
• Naturalization applications

For more information, go to our publications on Immigration.

We are proud partners of PIM (Peregrine Immigration Management). This means that we have been qualified to regularly review and update the data in their Immiguru system - a web based global immigration knowledge database containing clear and comprehensive details on work permit processes to more than 90 different countries. We work in the Immiguru system on a regular basis to make sure that the timing, process, document and red flags data available for the Dominican Republic is current and detailed. We have become a preferred partner for Peregrine through our in-country expertise, quality service delivery and extensive experience, which we’ve demonstrated through our work with the Peregrine team and by provision of favourable client references.

White Collar Crime

All individuals physically found within Dominican territory are subject to the application of the laws and jurisdiction of local courts. Guzmán Ariza lawyers offer immediate and informed assistance to all those individuals who may find themselves in the unfortunate situation of being involved in or having suffered from a criminal act of any nature in the Dominican Republic.

Guzmán Ariza has eight offices located in the main cities and tourist areas of the Dominican Republic, which makes it the only law firm capable of offering personalized legal assistance to individuals needing their lawyers to be near and accessible not only in Santo Domingo, the capital, but also where they may reside or vacation.

By knowing the local authorities of all major town areas, our attorneys can navigate and handle both the criminal process and the concurrent civil action more expediently and ensure that our clients’ rights are duly protected.

For more information, go to our publications on Criminal Law.