Cross-Border
Legal Counsel in Spain

Spain is a civil-law jurisdiction governed by its civil code, commercial code, and code of civil procedure. Disputes are decided by professional judges across a structure of First Instance Courts, Provincial Courts (Audiencias Provinciales), and the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo), with commercial matters heard by specialised Commercial Courts (Juzgados de lo Mercantil).
For foreign parties, the Commercial Courts are the most relevant feature: they handle insolvency, competition, corporate, and IP disputes with specialist expertise. Spain also has a regional dimension — certain autonomous communities have their own civil-law particularities — which can matter in specific disputes and is part of the early analysis.
Spain has a foreign-investment screening regime covering non-EU buyers in strategic sectors, which can affect the timeline and structure of acquisitions. As with France and Italy, this needs to be planned for from the outset of any transaction involving a non-EU acquirer.
The regional dimension of Spanish law deserves a further word. Several autonomous communities retain their own civil-law particularities (derecho foral) in areas such as succession and property, which can intersect with commercial matters in specific circumstances. While most commercial disputes turn on the common Spanish framework, identifying where a regional particularity is engaged is part of the early analysis, and it occasionally affects both the applicable rules and the appropriate forum.

For civil and commercial judgments from other EU member states, recognition and enforcement in Spain run through the Brussels Ia Regulation (Recast) without separate exequatur, with the debtor bearing the burden of any limited refusal grounds. For arbitral awards, Spain applies the New York Convention, and Spanish courts are generally supportive of the recognition and enforcement of foreign awards.
For judgments from outside the EU, Spain applies its domestic recognition rules, and — importantly for our practice — has a developed body of practice on the recognition of Latin American judgments and awards, given the close commercial ties between Spain and the region. This Spain-LatAm recognition axis is a recurring feature of the matters we coordinate.
As elsewhere, the practical work is asset identification, correct sequencing, and protective measures where dissipation is a risk. We plan the execution strategy alongside the recognition application.
Spanish procedure provides precautionary measures (medidas cautelares) to secure assets pending proceedings, and for cross-border creditors these are an important tool where a debtor's Spanish assets are at risk of dissipation. Where the matter connects to Latin America, we coordinate the Spanish enforcement step with recognition or proceedings on the other side of the Atlantic, so the two halves reinforce rather than duplicate each other.

The Court of Arbitration of Madrid and the Spanish Arbitration Court are the principal institutions, and Madrid has deliberately positioned itself as a hub for Spanish-language arbitration serving both European and Latin American disputes. For parties on either side of the Atlantic, a Madrid seat offers a neutral, Spanish-language forum with a supportive supervisory judiciary.
Spanish courts apply the New York Convention and are generally pro-arbitration. For litigation, the specialised Commercial Courts handle business disputes. The Spanish-Latin American arbitration axis — Madrid as a seat for disputes connecting the two regions — is one of the distinctive features of our Spanish practice and a frequent feature of the matters we coordinate.
The Spanish-Latin American arbitration axis deserves emphasis. For a dispute connecting a Spanish party with Latin American operations, a Madrid seat offers a neutral, Spanish-language forum whose awards are enforceable under the New York Convention on both sides of the Atlantic — frequently a more practical choice than litigating in either party's home courts, and one we are well placed to run given the same partner leads both the Iberian and Latin American work.
Beyond the Madrid arbitration axis, it is worth noting the practical attraction of arbitration for Iberian-LatAm matters generally: an award under the New York Convention travels across the Atlantic more reliably than a court judgment, whose recognition depends on the domestic rules of each jurisdiction. For a dispute connecting Spanish and Latin American parties, this enforceability advantage frequently makes arbitration the rational default, and structuring the clause accordingly is part of the value we add at the contracting stage.

Spanish matters cluster around the country's role as a European base for Latin American business and vice versa. Cross-border M&A is prominent: European and non-EU acquirers of Spanish targets, and Spanish companies expanding into or disputing with Latin American operations. Foreign-investment screening features for non-EU buyers in strategic sectors.
A second cluster is the Iberian-LatAm dispute and arbitration axis — Madrid-seated arbitration serving disputes that connect the two regions, and the enforcement of Latin American judgments and awards in Spain. A third is enforcement and recovery against Spanish assets in cross-border recovery campaigns.
We do not handle routine Spanish domestic litigation or consumer matters. Our work is the cross-border dispute or transaction — particularly those bridging Europe and Latin America — where the Spanish component warrants partner-level, bilingual attention.
Recurring Spanish sectors include infrastructure and construction (where Spanish groups are major international players, especially across Latin America), energy and renewables, hospitality and real estate, and banking. The Latin American exposure of Spanish corporates is a defining feature — many Spanish disputes are in substance Iberian-LatAm disputes, which is exactly where our bridge model adds the most value.

Spain is run on the same coordination model: one partner owns the strategy, local counsel act under instruction and report through us. What makes Spain distinctive is that the same Spanish-qualified partner leads the Latin America desk, so a matter that bridges Spain and Latin America is coordinated by a single person fluent in both legal cultures and both languages — rather than split between a Spanish firm and a separate Latin American firm that never quite align.
For Iberian-LatAm matters, this is the core of the value: the partner who handles the Spanish recognition of a Latin American award also understands the proceedings that produced it, and the partner structuring a Spanish acquisition with LatAm operations sees both sides of the deal. One relationship spans what would otherwise be a transatlantic coordination problem.

Spain rewards a bilingual, bicultural hand who bridges European and Latin American practice. We scope the Spanish issues alongside every other jurisdiction in play, deliver a strategy memo with a procedural map and fee structure within five business days, run the Spanish matter directly through our Spanish-qualified partner, and report to you in English.

Spain's value to clients is as a bridge — between Europe and Latin America, between civil-law practice and Spanish-language arbitration, and between two commercial cultures that share a language but differ in legal practice. Realising that value requires a partner who works natively on both sides, not two disconnected engagements.
VLO's Spanish-qualified, Latin-America-leading partner makes that bridge a single coordinated relationship. The same person who handles a Spanish acquisition with Latin American operations, or the Spanish recognition of a Latin American award, sees the whole transatlantic picture.
For General Counsel and CFOs operating across Europe and Latin America, this means one accountable, bilingual relationship for matters that would otherwise require coordinating firms on two continents — with transparent fees and the discretion sensitive matters require.