ANGOLA - Economy
CEO, Cazos Advogados
Bio
Cipriano Cazo is a lawyer with over 10 years of focusing exclusively on business crimes and penal compliance, often involving fraud/corruption, disputes, compliance and tax crimes, extradition and international cooperation, corporate investigations, and cybercrimes, and asset recovery. He is also the managing partner of Cazos Sociedade de Advogados.
Our office has just a five-year history in the market and works based on three main pillars. The first is relationship, looking at the professional and the lawyer, and the second pillar is the relationship between the lawyer at Cazo and the client, while the third pillar is the company’s relationship with the Angolan community. Our objectives will be based on these pillars, so first we focus on developing the professionals working at Cazos, who all possess high technical competence. In relation to the third pillar, which is the community, we lend support in terms of human rights protection. For example, in one year we defended 25 cases of human rights violations, pro bono. Essentially, we first invest in the professional, so that they in turn foster solid client relationships and spread legal knowledge within the community.
We work essentially in six areas. One is corporate law, which covers the registration, maintenance and company’s enclosure, accompanying private investors, and handling the entry and exit of partners. And meanwhile, in the area of family law, we handle such issues as death, domestic violence, and citizen registration. In terms of criminal law, we handle cases of abuse. And then there is the area of industrial property, which deals with companies, or citizens registering trademarks. We also have a labor law and immigration law. Our firm has around three or four lawyers attached to each legal area.
For the 2023, we will have two new specializations concerning refugee rights, a human concern that we are highly focused on. These refugees need to be accompanied by an institution that can issue them the necessary registration documents, so that they can live like any other citizen. And the other area we want to work on in the future is the issue of digital and legal marketing. We want to get involved in this, following several law firms, making the best use of social networks, keeping in mind a simple, clear, and objective language.
First, it will depend on whether that investor is a resident or not. If he is external, he will first start by obtaining a visa, which our firm also assist with. Through the power of attorney, we can also register a company for the investor, while they are out of the country so that it is already open when they arrive. Afterwards, a registration investment is made at the Agency for Private Investment and Promotion of Exports of Angola (AIPEX), which has its own procedure.
Today’s professionals are aware of the need to digitalize their processes. Some documents, such as birth certificates, already come with a QR Code, which is innovative. We are also going to enter QR codes into the mix, to facilitate communication. We need to develop a management software that has a relationship with the client, lawyers, with accounting, so that a procedural document can be produced within minutes. Therefore, we will start training on this in February.
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ANGOLA - Economy
Interview
President, Chamber of Commerce and Industry Angola-Saudi Arabia (CCIAAS)