Specialities

JUDICIAL BANK DEBT COLLECTION

Since its foundation, Bufet Casanovas has provided legal services to highly regarded companies of the financial and banking field.

Among other matters, we have specialised and become professional in the judicial claim of unpaid debts.

We have the know-how, the team and the processes to fast and effectively handle bank debt records, thereby focusing on the increase of our clients’ profitability, as well as the capacity to appropriately process a large amount of records.

We integrate the IT processes of our clients, our office and the legal representatives as much as possible. This saves time for all parties and allows clients to have access to real-time information of their records.

Thanks to a structure based on independent teams, we can immediately expand our capacity and obtain results from the moment a record is assigned to a team. If needed due to new requirements or a volume increase, existing teams can be divided into new independent teams.

We prioritize transactional solutions with the debtor, negotiating both in the prior claim stages and in the judicial claim itself, taking over the telephone management and aiming to come to agreements that ensure debts are collected as fast and profitable as possible.

We adapt our debt collection teams and strategies to the kind of debt or portfolio received, whether it is a small purchase-related amount or a mortgage debt.

Bufet Casanovas is permanently adapting itself to the ongoing changes in the credit sector, providing our services to renowned financial institutions as well as to important investment funds management companies, micro-credits companies and on-line financing start-ups. Finally, we also manage judicial claims of non-financial SME debt.

CLIENTS

BANKING AND FINANCIAL LAW

Since it was founded, Bufet Casanovas has been fully interrelated in the banking and financial world.

We support our financial institution clients in their daily management needs: drafting of agreements, negotiations, legal defence before court, bankruptcy processes, etc.

Our team is highly specialised in the counselling of the financial sector in its entire scope of action, including regulatory Law, consumer loans, mortgages, abusive clauses, bankruptcy mediation and arrangement with creditors, among others.

DATA PROTECTION – Data protection delegating service

The added value of Bufet Casanovas resides in a corporate litigation closely adapted to best fit each client, offering counselling with a global strategy that focuses on minimizing the reputational risk.

PRIVACY LAWS AND DATA PROTECTION

Our professional staff support our clients in the effective and personalized integration of privacy and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in their organisations.

Specific services:

• External Data Protection Officer (DPO)
• DPO and Privacy Office support
• GDPR-adaptation consultancy
• Implementation of the GDPR compliance model
• Audit and monitoring of the GDPR compliance model
• Adaptation to certifications compliance
• Training and awareness-rising of managers and staff
• Tools implementation on demand
• Personalised consultancy service
• Legal assistance and representation on data protection related proceedings

E-COMMERCE AND INTERNET

• Adaptation of websites to the several applicable regulations
• We have large experience on subjects related with Privacy Policy, data protection liability and penalties, right to object, information security, right to data portability, and personal data in social networks.

FOUNDATIONS AND NON-PROFIT ASSOCIATIONS

We are experts in the legal, economic and tax management of foundations and non-profit associations. This allows us to advise our clients in the drafting of the articles of association and the corporate governance, based on the specific characteristics of each association and the wishes of its founders and members.

We are able to interpret and apply the specific tax regulations for this kind of entities, as well as to determine the minimum percentage that should be applied to the statutory purposes of a foundation according to its guidelines.

We draft and submit the annual accounts to the Foundations Commission.

FAMILY OFFICE

Family-owned companies need a special approach due to the peculiarities of this type of companies and to the numerous actors that, in some cases, are involved in the management and inheritance processes. A special sensitivity is also required to understand and deal with the several present and future interests as well as to anticipate conflicts.

Our professional experience has taught us that, in order to avoid potential disputes, it is necessary to design family succession plans that visualize if it is advisable to transfer the company to the following generation, and to whom or what part of the family, or if it is preferable to dissolve the company in the best possible way.

We provide guidance and plan both the management of the family office, adjusting aspects of the corporate governance with a family protocol, if applicable, and the company’s succession and family worth, with the most appropriate design to adapt or reduce the tax impact on the company’s owners.

URBANISM

We are specialised in the management of town planning development projects and reparcelling projects, as well as in the set up and management of compensation boards and other collaborating urban entities.

We provide counselling and defence for proceedings regarding legal protection of urban planning, expropriation, etc.

We negotiate and draft urban agreements with public administrations.

We help our clients in case they need to challenge urban managment and planing instruments.

We work hand in hand with our technical staff (architects) in order to respond to all needs, thus being able to focus on the legal and technical aspects. The interrelation between these two fields is essential to conclude a sound management of the records.

MEDIATION

Mediation can be the most convenient solution for all parties involved in a dispute. It is efficient, simple and confidential. It is as well very suitable for disputes in the civil and commercial field.

Mediation assesses the most efficient alternatives according to the client’s needs and the origin and nature of the dispute, avoiding potential risks that could arise from a court decision.

We present this option in order for the client to evaluate the use of mediation as the best way to dispute resolution.

We count on mediation lawyers that prepare and assist the client during the mediation, as well as on mediation specialists who can be designated as mediators in a dispute.

SPECIAL TAX ARRANGEMENTS FOR ART WORKS

We are specialised in the special VAT arrangements for art trading operations, a peculiar and very complex system.

Our experience in this field started over 20 years ago, having negotiated direct trade operations as well as national, intra-community and extra-community auctions.

We have participated in trading operations at the most important auction houses in the world.

We process the export or intra-community purchase applications.

CORPORATE CRIMINAL LIABILITY

We take care of the design, implementation and management of protocols to avoid corporate criminal liability arising from illegal acts performed by the company’s personnel. This speciality is the result of the enforcement in 2010 of a law that makes all non-public legal entities subject to direct criminal liability in the presence of: (I) illegal actions of its legal representatives or administrators, de jure or de facto, or (ii) illegal actions of its personnel if no appropriate control has been exercised over them.

The entity will be criminally responsible even if no author has been identified or if no proceeding against the author has been started; both the author and the entity will be held liable, independently from each other. Furthermore, possible mitigating circumstances of the author do not apply to the entity.

Criminal consequences for the entity are very serious, with penalties involving fines up to 20 times the obtained earnings, company dissolution, suspension of activities, closure of premises, or the disqualification for access to grants, public calls for tenders and tax or social security benefits.

Criminal liability can be exonerated or reduced due to mitigating circumstances if the entity counts with internal control policies (corporate compliance).

Therefore, it is essential to have protocols for the detection and prevention of illegal actions and for the identification of activities susceptible to involve illegal actions. Staff must also be forced to report of any potential risk or any breach of the regulations, establishing a disciplinary system that punishes the failure to comply with the existing measures.

Protocols must be reviewed and updated regularly, and a reporting system for this task must be established. In any case, protocols intended to a merely formal fulfilment are not valid for liability exemption.

As mentioned above, we take over the design, implementation and management of crime prevention protocols, the development of a code of ethics, if necessary, and the training and information plans for the entire team, including administrators, managers and staff.

FINTECH

Our broad expertise in the banking and financial sector has allowed —and allows— us to witness and take part of the progressive and constant adaptation of this sector to new technologies. This has provided the basis to position ourselves with naturalness and resolute solvency in the FINTECH sector, offering a disruptive innovation service that prioritises regulatory compliance and the integral application of the sector’s best practice codes.

Bufet Casanovas offers its services focused on prioritising regulatory compliance with the added value of alternative dispute resolution and corporate litigation closely adapted to best fit each customer, offering counselling with a global strategy that focuses on minimizing the reputational risk.

1. Services related with Privacy and Information Security:

• Development, review, adaptation and update of the privacy and information security policies required for an effective regulatory compliance.
• Implementation, review, adaptation and update of organisational processes (technical and legal) that ensure the regulatory compliance and the best practices of the FINTECH sector.
• Counselling and support of decision-making to define internal processes and suppliers-related processes.
• Counselling and support to select those vendors that best match the company’s requirements while fulfilling the applicable regulations.

2. Services related with consumer rights and best practices:

• Counselling regarding the Customer Service aimed to define processes that ensure that consumers can exercise their rights.
• Development, review, adaptation and update of the sector’s best practice codes.
• Defence of our clients before the Municipal Consumer Information Offices, consumer mediation services, courts of arbitration and other courts.