Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

General Commercial Litigation

PunoLaw’s litigators provide tactical and practical solutions to commercial disputes. With decades of experience in trial practice, our lead litigators have achieved major victories which include favorable judgments rendered by the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Numerous high stakes commercial litigation have also been successfully concluded by our team of litigators in various tiers of the judiciary.

Handling complex commercial litigation for so many years has enriched the practice of our litigation group. It has enabled our litigators to draw from their varied experiences and skills in developing a robust strategy that is aligned with the business interests of our clients.

Our litigators are deeply dedicated and passionate about their work, whether the task is to mount a challenge against a party, or to defend a client.

The litigation team’s expertise in trial techniques is not only borne out of years of trial practice and mastery of substantive and procedural rules but is also the result of the guidance and tutelage of its Founding Partner, Justice Ricardo C. Puno, Sr. Before he founded the firm in 1984, Justice Puno had a long and distinguished career in public service spanning 22 years in the judiciary, legislative and executive branches of the government. Most of those years were spent in the judiciary as a judge in the Court of First Instance and then as a Justice of the Court of Appeals.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

PunoLaw’s litigation practice has expanded throughout the years. The practice is no longer confined to the established norms of the Philippine judicial and quasi-judicial systems but has covered other modes of dispute resolution which have gone beyond the boundaries of the usual rules of procedure of judicial courts and quasi-judicial agencies. When the Supreme Court declared in a case decided in 1998 that “arbitration is the wave of the future,” PunoLaw was already riding a wave of disputes requiring final resolution through arbitration. Since then, the dispute resolution practice of PunoLaw has grown steadily.

Our arbitration team has comprehensive experience in representing clients in several dispute resolutions involving international and domestic arbitrations under United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Arbitration Rules, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Rules of Arbitration, Hong Kong Arbitration Rules and construction arbitration under Construction Industry Arbitration Commission (CIAC) Rules, including the dispute resolution procedure under the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market Rules.

Criminal Litigation

The criminal litigation practice of PunoLaw is just as active and spirited as the other areas of litigation practice. Our litigators’ fearless representation, whether as private prosecutor or defense counsel, has brought about effective results in criminal actions involving entrapment, inquest, arrests, search and seizure of property, preliminary investigation, bail hearing, quashing of information, suspension of arraignment, private prosecution, defending the accused, plea bargaining and appeals to the Philippine Department of Justice.

Administrative Proceedings and Special Proceedings

Our team of litigators is heavily involved in representing clients before various government agencies exercising quasi-judicial functions.

We have appeared for hearings before, and successfully obtained favorable resolutions from, quasi-judicial bodies in the Philippines such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Energy Regulatory Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, Department of Justice, Land Registration Administration, Office of the Ombudsman, Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, Office of the President, Commission on Elections, Laguna Lake Development Authority, National Water Resources Board, among others.