SMFC has a specialised team that assists foreign clients in processes related to obtaining Portuguese residence and nationality, namely applications for the granting of Visas and Residence Permits, with special focus on Residence Permits for Investment Activity (ARI), within the scope of the Golden Visa investment programme in Portugal. In the specific case of Golden Visas, we provide assistance, namely, when making the investment (whether real estate or capital investment), and when submitting the application for a Residence Permit for Investment Activity.

Likewise, we provide advice to foreign clients who wish to acquire Portuguese nationality, namely through the legal possibility of acquiring nationality through naturalisation provided for descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews.

Additionally, we advise clients who intend to reside in Portugal and obtain the Non-Resident status.

In any of the aforementioned cases, we also provide the necessary legal advice for investments in Portugal that clients intend to make.

This practice area integrates a multidisciplinary team with experience in the areas of Real Estate, Corporate and Tax Law.

We provide daily assistance to business clients in telecommunications, both national and foreign, promoting the drafting and revision of software licensing contracts, the provision of IT services (namely in an outsourcing scheme), technology transfer and ensuring the necessary relationship with the competent regulatory entities.

The debt recovery area has followed the history of SMFC since the year of its foundation. With extensive experience in this area, SMFC has private and business clients, namely in financial, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, insurance and other areas, with a significant number of processes, accompanying them from the questioning phase to the initiation of the competent lawsuit to the executive stage.

Critical importance is given to the negotiation process, aiming at a speedy extrajudicial debt recovery, making the use of the judicial route residual, with the consequent reduction of inherent costs.

In the judicial field, this area is composed of a team with vast experience in litigation in courts and arbitral tribunals.

We work closely with the client, allowing a debt recovery rate with a renowned level of success.

Debt recovery is also geared towards providing an adequate response to clients within the scope of Special Revitalisation and Insolvency Procedures, namely, in the defence of their credit rights and in accompanying company recovery and restructuring operations.

In this area, we are ready to advise our clients on a wide range of services in the field of intellectual property, namely in all matters related to the registration of trademarks, patents and copyrights, drafting and analysis of contracts, licensing and transfer or acquisition of intellectual property rights.

The SMFC team dedicated to privacy and protection of personal data has vast experience at national and European Union level, in the fields of privacy and data protection, advising some of the most relevant business groups and organisations in the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation Data (GDPR) and related topics.

We provide daily assistance to our client companies, ranging from drafting employment contracts and other essential documentation for hiring and assistance in complying with the provisions in force regarding the employer’s obligations, to monitoring dismissal processes, including collective redundancies.
Where necessary, to respond to the particular needs of each client, close collaboration is established with the Corporate and Tax teams, namely, to prepare legal Due Diligence reports and planning of corporate restructuring, anticipating their consequences for labour.

SMFC has a specialised team dedicated to Real Estate which, together with other areas of practice at SMFC, namely the Corporate and Tax teams, seeks to provide its clients with a specialised service by finding the right solutions for their interests.

The services provided within the Real Estate area include, namely:

• The structuring of appropriate investment vehicles in coordination with the Corporate and Tax areas;
• Assistance in the process of acquiring real estate and in the preparation of subsequent records and the operations required to finance the acquisition of real estate;
• Drafting and negotiation of contracts within the scope of real estate development projects;
• Assistance in the context of the constitution of horizontal property;
• Preparation, negotiation and follow-up of the execution of urban and rural lease contracts; and
• Carrying out Due Diligence on real estate assets and assistance in the settlement of registration, registry and urban issues.

We provide tax advice to national and international economic groups from a wide range of industries, as well as to private clients in the tax management of their investments and/or assets. Our advice also covers the follow-up of judicial or extrajudicial partition processes, due to divorce or death, and assistance in asset structuring and succession planning.

Regarding tax, we work together with other areas of practice at SMFC, namely, with the Corporate, Real Estate and Family and Probate teams, seeking to provide our clients with solutions adapted to their objectives that are fiscally efficient.

Tax advice to our clients includes, namely:

• Accompanying the conception and execution of corporate restructuring operations;
• Monitoring real estate operations;
• Assessing the tax risk of operations designed by clients;
• Tax optimisation, both nationally and internationally, within the framework of applicable international law instruments (e.g. EU Directives and Conventions to avoid Double Taxation);
• Settling tax disputes and monitoring tax litigation procedures and processes;
• Accompanying clients in the context of their change of residence (either abroad or to Portugal) – in particular under the Golden Visa programmes and the Non-Resident status.

In terms of tax litigation, we seek to provide advice based on pragmatic and innovative solutions, namely through:

• Assessment of tax contingencies;
• Definition of reaction strategies;
• Consideration of the most appropriate, simple and quick means;
• Follow-up of tax enforcement and reversal processes;
• Advice on responding to lawsuits for tax offences.

Our firm has a team with vast experience in Family and Probate Law.
With regard to Family Law, we provide assistance to our clients in a wide range of areas, such as divorce proceedings, legal separation, regulation of the exercise of parental responsibilities, among others.
We conduct the negotiation aimed at obtaining a divorce agreement by mutual consent, always with the greatest willingness to reach consensus between the parties, namely through by preparing the legally required agreements, sharing of common assets of the couple and regulating the exercise of parental responsibilities. In situations where litigation is required, we assist our client throughout all procedural stages, as well as in the steps needed after the end of the process.
In each specific case, it is our priority to safeguard the best interests of our clients and, in processes involving regulation of the exercise of parental responsibilities, safeguard the interest and future of the minors involved.
Within the scope of Probate Law, we provide our clients with an experienced team in resolving succession issues, with special emphasis on negotiating extrajudicial partition agreements and conducting inventory processes, but also on issues of asset structuring and succession planning, in conjunction with our Tax team. Also with regard to the planning of dispositions beyond death, namely in the preparation of wills, those responsible for this area have experience in the search and implementation of adequate solutions to the family and particular features of each case.
As these are particularly delicate matters for our clients, the lawyers who work in this area try to employ in each specific case, in addition to the necessary technical skills, the ever-essential human dimension.
In conjunction with our Corporate and Tax teams (as well as other branches of law that prove necessary in each case), we provide our clients with all assistance needed to manage assets within the scope of the so-called “family companies”.

SMFC has litigation as one of its most significant areas of activity. Our experience covers all areas of litigation, be it civil, labour, commercial, insolvency, debt recovery, administrative, tax, criminal and offences.
Therein, we highlight the vast experience of out litigation teams in counselling all type of proceedings in a wide range of economic areas, in the monitoring of corporate clients in the area of telecommunications and services, as well as in debt recovery processes.
SMFC has been focusing heavily on arbitration, as an alternative dispute settlement solution, providing its clients with permanent support and high technical quality.
Several lawyers from the firm, namely on of its partners, have gained wide experience in arbitral proceedings, not only as representatives of the parties, but also as arbitrators, with SMFC participating in international and national arbitrations, in different areas of law.
The SMFC team is therefore prepared to represent its clients in national and international arbitration, under public or private law, in Portugal or abroad, making each arbitration process a serious commitment to act with the utmost diligence, competence and commitment, in the defence of the interests and rights of our clients.

Our lawyers provide day-to-day assistance to companies in a wide range of industries, both within the scope of intra-group corporate restructuring operations and assistance with the day-to-day needs of our client companies.

Among the operations in which we provide advice are, namely, amendments to bylaws, preparation and assistance at meetings of the General Assembly and Board of Directors, including assistance resulting from legal secretarial services to the Firm, assessment of the obligations and liabilities of shareholders and directors, negotiation and preparation of shareholders’ agreements, definition and implementation of measures with a view to financing companies.

We also advise our clients on drawing up commercial contracts suited to the needs of each business.

The mergers and acquisitions team is responsible for monitoring operations involving the restructuring of corporate groups, as well as operations involving mergers, scissions and acquisitions of companies in their different forms, guaranteeing global assistance throughout the entire operation, from the preparation of the preliminary agreements to carry out the competent legal due diligence and, finally, drafting and negotiation of the relevant contracts.

The SMFC team dedicated to the area of Public Law is composed of Lawyers with extensive experience and specialised training in the sector. The legal advice provided by SMFC in this area has focused mainly on Public Procurement, Administrative Litigation and the Environment.

The department has a team dedicated to dealing with any issue of Public Law, providing support and collaborating with a wide range of clients, whether public entities or companies in the private sector, in the latter case, with special focus on matters related to Public Procurement and Administrative Litigation.