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Antonio A. Arias-Larcada is a Capital Member in the Litigation Practice Group. He is also Chairman of the Bids and Government Procurement Practice Area, Chairman of the Collections Practice Area and Co-chair of the Bankruptcy and Creditor's Rights Practice Area. He joined the firm in 1988.
Practice and Experience
Mr. Arias-Larcada has developed a general civil and commercial litigation practice with emphasis in bankruptcy, the RICO Act, collections, foreclosure and asset repossession in federal and state courts. He has significant experience in bids and procurement consulting and litigation before nearly all agencies representing companies bidding on government contracts for goods and services ranging from law enforcement aircraft to bone healing medical equipment. He practices extensively before the federal courts and administrative agencies at trial and appellate levels. Mr. Arias also specializes in workouts, medical malpractice, construction law, the petroleum industry, evictions, telecomunications, violations of the automatic stay, educational loan dischargeability issues, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act litigation and consulting, and arbitration claims. He has consulted for several clients in government acquisition of computer hardware and software for major infrastructure projects.
Education
He obtained a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from Boston College and a juris doctor from the Interamerican University School of Law in Puerto Rico where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Admissions
Mr. Arias-Larcada is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court Appeals for the First Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the Puerto Rico District.
Memberships
He is a member of the Federal Bar Association. He regularly lectures on bankruptcy and collections. For the last 15 years Mr. Arias-Larcada has been giving the bankruptcy bar review course sponsored by the FBA.
Representative Cases
Mr. Arias-Larcada has argued several times before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Early in his career at McConnell Valdés he successfully defended a mortgage lender from homeowners who had brought an action to recover millions for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the Truth in Lending (TILA) Act, RESPA and Puerto Rico fraud statutes in connection with the sale of defective luxury housing. The United States District Court dismissed the complaint. It was affirmed in Arzuaga-Collazo v. Oriental Federal Savings Bank, 913 F.2d 5 (1st Cir. 1990). He has represented creditors and institutional lenders in major Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the District of Puerto Rico including the Emerito Estrada Rivera, Charlie Auto Sales, Inc, Redondo Construction, Nutritional Resouces a/k/a Pueblo Supermarkets and La Electronica, Inc. reorganization cases. Mr. Arias-Larcada has had jury trial experience representing Volvo Car Corporation in a RICO and money laundering class action and on the plaintiffs' side in cases of age discrimination under federal and state law. As chairman of the Bids and Procurement Practice Area, Mr. Arias-Larcada successfully represented Bell Helicopter Textron in 1999 in a contentious bid challenge following the award to Bell of a government contract for a new fleet of helicopters for the Puerto Rico Police Department. In 2007, after five years of litigation, he secured the dismissal with prejudice of a commercial dispute against multinational Schlumberger Ltd. in relation to its installation and operation of an inmate public telephone network part of a telecommunications contract involving the Puerto Rico Telephone Company and the Corrections Administration. In 2008, he handled for Shell Trading a successful bid challenge in a multi-million dollar petroleum supply contract before the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. To date, his practice group has consulted or intervened on behalf of firm clients in over 25 different government bids involving a wide spectrum of goods and services.
Publications
He has published several articles on RICO and bankruptcy issues in local newspapers. Mr. Arias is a regular member of the faculty of the National Business Institute where he gives seminars on bankruptcy, collection and ethics. | 