Mr. Bryan A. San Juan, the Founding Dean of Liceo de Masbate College of Law and concurrently Senior Partner in Sarmiento Loriega Law, heads the Antitrust and Competition Law Practice and Anti-Money Laundering Law Practice. He co-heads other practice areas including Energy and Power Utilities; Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A); Fintech; ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance); Banking and Financial Laws, Mining and Natural Resources; Climate Change; Intellectual Property and General Commercial Laws.
Since Mr. San Juan was admitted as a Senior Partner in December 2020, award-giving bodies have taken notice of the high quality of his work. In 2023, Mr. San Juan became one of the youngest partners admitted to the prestigious Asia Business Law Journal’s (“ABLJ”) List of Top 100 Lawyers in the Philippines. In 2024, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific identified him as a Recommended Lawyer in the fields of Antitrust & Competition Law and Corporate M&As.
In recognition of the profound impact of Mr. San Juan’s work in ESG, Climate Change, and Renewable Energy, the British Council Philippines conferred upon Mr. San Juan the distinction of being the first National Winner for Science and Sustainability in the inaugural launch of the Study UK Alumni Awards in the Philippines last February 2024.
Mr. San Juan has two law degrees and a certificate from prestigious academic institutions. He finished his Juris Doctor at the University of the Philippines College of Law (“UP Law”) with distinction as Class Valedictorian and Cum Laude. In UP Law, he received the highest number of academic awards including the ACCRA Law Medal for Excellence in Law, the Dean’s Medal for Academic Excellence, the UP Law Class of 1972 Award for Academic Excellence, and the prestigious Gonzalo W. Gonzalez Award for his services to the poor through the UP Office of Legal Aid.
In 2019, Mr. San Juan attained his Magister Juris (“MJur”) from the University of Oxford in England with Academic Merit (Magna cum laude equivalent) and was recognized by Hertford College for his Exceptional Academic Performance. For his MJur, Mr. San Juan’s areas of concentration included competition laws of the European Union, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States under the guidance of intellectual giants in Antitrust Laws. While in Oxford, he also extensively trained at the Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy where he was heavily exposed to special issues in EU and UK competition laws. In 2024, Mr. San Juan obtained an ESG Certificate from the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge (UK).
As the Head of the Antitrust Practice, Mr. San Juan has a formidable presence across all fields of competition law. On the merger control side, from the enactment of the Philippine Competition Act to the present, he has successfully obtained the approval of the Philippine Competition Commission (“PCC”) on Phase 1 review of M&As with a collective transaction value now exceeding Php411 Billion. He has extensively advised M&A parties on various aspects of merger control from drafting their clean team protocols, and guidelines to premerger exchange of information up to proactive preparations such as preparations of structural and behavioral remedies in anticipation of possible competition concerns. He is currently advising and has advised major clients including conglomerates on difficult antitrust issues both on merger control (such as proving a failing firm defense or failing division defense, and defenses based on merger efficiencies) and antitrust enforcement issues. As an Oxford-trained practitioner, Mr. San Juan has given clients in cross-border M&As comparative perspectives on how their contemplated M&A will likely be treated under US and EU competition laws and has worked with international law firms to manage cross-border antitrust issues. On the enforcement side, he has advised clients on highly concentrated markets on actual or potential antitrust enforcement issues and devised protocols to manage dawn raids and legal proceedings.
Mr. San Juan’s most prestigious international engagements include his designation in 2023 as the Philippine Antitrust Expert and Procurement Law Expert by the World Bank Group in its global project to improve business regulatory regimes. Mr. San Juan was also consulted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) in its review of the Philippine merger control regime.
Under Mr. San Juan’s watch, the Antitrust Practice of the Firm was recognized in the 2023 Asian Legal Business (“ALB”) Philippine Law Firm Awards as one of the Top 5 Antitrust advisors in the country, and in the Legal 500 Asia Pacific (January 2024 edition) as one of top tier practice groups in the Philippines. In February 2024, the ABLJ Philippine Law Firm Awards named the Firm as Antitrust and Competition Law Firm of the Year, and featured the key work of the Firm in this practice area.
As Energy Partner, Mr. San Juan has gained a strong foothold in the Energy Industry. In November 2023, Project Leyte, a major renewable energy project in the Philippines that Mr. San Juan counseled, was hailed by the Asian Legal Business as the 2023 M&A Deal of the Year. He is now leading one of the largest solar energy developers in the country in its multiple concurrent projects in the Philippines. In the field of Energy Litigation, he is lead counsel to the top three (3) performing distribution utilities, handling their complex constitutional and regulatory litigation before the Supreme Court and the Energy Regulatory Commission. He is co-lead counsel in many high-value disputes of the Firm’s client generation companies including arbitration before Singapore International Court of Arbitration. He also co-leads advisory work to clean energy funds and other global investment funds seeking to invest in the renewable energy sector.
As Banking and Financial Laws Partner, he has extensively advised financial conglomerates and banks. He also advised several financing and lending companies in their compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering Act including the Wolfsberg Principles and crafting their Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Programs that also reflect the Wolfsberg Principles. He has also successfully caused the lifting of freeze orders, or asset protection orders issued against some of the Firm’s clients. Under his watch, the Firm has been listed in 2024 by the Legal 500 as one of the Firms to Watch in Banking. In 2023, the Banking Practice also made it to the Top 5 Best Practice Groups in the ALB Philippine Law Firm Awards.
As ESG Partner, Mr. San Juan supervised the Firm’s most significant engagement in ESG for a major Philippine bank. Under his supervision, the Firm was commended by the Bank for extensively helping it in its ESG Audit and ESG Compliance. Under his watch, the Firm completed for the Bank an ESG Primer, ESG Scorecard, ESG Due Diligence Checklist, ESG Negative List, and Guidelines for the bank’s frontliners to fully implement ESG. For Environment and Climate Change, Mr. San Juan co-leads the Team in the crafting of litigation strategy and drafting of key arguments for the Firm’s client non-government organizations/people’s organizations. Thus, no less than the British Council Philippines has recognized Mr. San Juan’s work in Science and Sustainability.
As Fintech Partner, Atty. San Juan leads the Firm’s advisory work to two large groups of companies operating in the Southeast Asian Region that have interests in banking, finance and lending operations and e-commerce in the Philippines. He has previously guided firms on the requirements for the establishment of a payment gateway services business, and applications for non-bank electronic money issuer.
As Mining and Natural Resources Partner, Mr. San Juan has rendered extensive advisory work to a global mining company with three subsidiaries in the Philippines on their corporate/commercial needs, mining tenements/mining rights issues including an ongoing negotiation with a potential buyer of their global mining assets. In his previous firm, Mr. San Juan was also the lead associate in key M&As in the field of mining including the divestment by Freeport McMoRan Exploration Corporation (one of the world’s largest mining companies) from the Philippines. He was also instrumental in resolving Seller issues and CAR-related issues in the sale by an Australian mining company of its mining interests of a key mining asset in Mindanao.
Mr. San Juan is a leading figure in the Firm’s high-stakes commercial and environmental litigation. Known for his formidable command of Civil Law, which he further honed after taking Civilian Foundations of Contract Law in Oxford Law and as an active Civil Law professor in UP Law, he played an instrumental role in developing strong advocacy positions on Civil Law matters. Mr. San Juan is also the Firm’s constitutionalist having rendered key opinions and leading the Firm in handling a Supreme Court case on constitutional issues of far-reaching importance to the Firm’s clients.
Before joining the Firm, Mr. San Juan was a top-ranked corporate Senior Associate (SA) in a large firm where he handled high-value M&As from 2011-2020. While he was only an SA then, in 2019, a global law firm recognized Mr. San Juan’s firm grasp on antitrust issues and nominated him to Europe’s Who's Who Legal: Competition-Future Leaders 2019 (Non-Partners Category).
Mr. San Juan wears multiple hats. He is concurrently a Managing Director at SL and Partners Consultancy Inc. (SLPCI), where has been actively involved in deal-making in hydroelectric power and other renewable energy projects. He is also actively helping his Partners as they work towards pioneering the first-ever Green and Sustainable Mining Project in the Philippines.
As a graduate of top law schools, one of Mr. San Juan’s advocacies is the improvement of legal education in the Philippines. He is currently a professor of Commercial and Civil Laws at UP Law, a member of its Civil Law cluster since 2020, a Bar Lecturer for Civil Law at the UP Law Bar Review Institute, and a member of the Panel of Civil Law Experts that suggests answers to the Philippine Civil Law Bar Exams. He is a Founding Faculty Member of the ASCOT College of Law in the Province of Aurora.
