Partner

María Laura Pedraza is a Founding Partner of Alaiza & Pedraza Abogados. She has more than 10 years of experience in Commercial Law – Civil and Intellectual Property (IP) matters.

She has worked in two Law Firms with long history in Intellectual Property – IP and Commercial Law in the Republic of Ecuador, both ranked in the “top 5 in the country” by International Institutions. She held the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in one of them, thanks to her excellent performance, leadership and ability to anticipate the needs of her clients and satisfy the expectations of the most demanding companies at an international level.

María Laura has structured, supervised and formed part of teams of lawyers, who advise some of the most important and influential business groups in the Andean region, international companies and transnational pharmaceutical companies with a presence in Latin America, María Laura handles client portfolios at the level of the Andean Community of Nations – CAN, and in other Latin American countries, such as Chile and Argentina.

She specializes in providing strategic advice to her clients on IP issues, the management of trademark portfolios, patents, industrial designs, copyright, effective protection of new technologies, as well as in litigation strategies and transactional agreements related to these matters. She pursues cases related to unfair competition, counterfeiting (piracy), and unauthorized use of distinctive signs. She also provides advice on trademarks to small entrepreneurs, promoting their positioning in the market. Thanks to her extensive network of contacts in Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Chile, she established an important network of connections for the surveillance and defense of the rights of her clients at the inter-Andean level, focusing her professional practice in this area.

In the regulatory area, she supervises the processes for obtaining permits and authorizations required by national and local markets, quality standards, due diligence, foreign trade matters, and other processes required for the sale and exploitation of products and / or services. She has experience in drafting franchise, concession and other distribution contracts.

Additionally, her participation in transcendental cases for Image rights and Advertising Law, both in television and in social networks, have highlighted her as one of the few professionals in the region who knows about the new generation of Communication and New Technologies rights, which also involve, in many cases, Consumer rights; having personally advised one of the most important social networks worldwide.

Her goal is to make Alaiza & Pedraza Abogados an undisputed leader at a local and regional level in Intellectual Property, Advertising Law and Image Rights, accompanying her clients in their insertion and growth in the market, and providing permanent advice at every step.

María Laura actively participates in forums and congresses on Intellectual Property issues. She is a lawyer from the SEK International University enabled in Chile and Ecuador, having completed her degree in both countries. She has taken various courses on issues of Intellectual Property, Competition and Administrative Law at prestigious Universities and Institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO, Georgetown University and Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar.

Languages: Spanish, English and French.