BPV hires Cristina Ayo from Uría Menéndez as litigation partner

BPV has strengthened its litigation area with the addition of Cristina Ayo, who joins from Uría Menéndez as a partner, Expansión reported on 19 October.

With more than 25 years of experience, Ayo specialises in litigation of high technical complexity, particularly product liability, mass litigation, collective actions and tort law.

A career focused on complex litigation

A law graduate from the University of Barcelona, the new partner has spent more than two decades practising pre-litigation and contentious advisory work in civil and commercial matters, and directing proceedings before Spanish courts and in national and international arbitrations.

Her experience is structured, according to Expansión, around three main areas:

• Product liability and crisis management, with a particular focus on the pharmaceutical and automotive sectors.
• Mass litigation and collective actions, a growing field in Spanish litigation practice.
• Tort law in complex disputes, including concurrence of liabilities, breach of contract, financial products and construction defects.

Who BPV is

BPV Abogados is a law firm with offices in Barcelona and Madrid providing comprehensive legal advice across all areas of law and sectors, as it describes on its official website. The addition of a partner with Ayo's contentious profile strengthens precisely the litigation side of that comprehensive offering, in a market where corporate clients increasingly demand coverage in both advisory work and disputes.

Why these three specialities matter

The three pillars of Ayo's practice correspond to litigation areas with particular traction in Spanish practice. Product liability concentrates some of the lawsuits with the greatest economic and reputational exposure for manufacturers, particularly in the pharmaceutical and automotive sectors on which the new partner focuses. Mass litigation and collective actions, for their part, have gained prominence in Spanish courts, with proceedings grouping thousands of people affected by the same product or practice. And complex tort law, from concurrence of liabilities to construction defects, demands a handling of evidence and a procedural strategy that only accumulated courtroom experience provides.

That a growing firm bets on a partner with this profile says much about where the market expects contentious work to be in the coming years.

A firm in a growth phase

Cristina Ayo's arrival is part of the growth phase BPV is going through. At the end of 2025, the firm added Fernando Bazán, from Deloitte Legal, as labour partner, later named managing partner of the Madrid office; and in 2026 it promoted Marta Granados to tax partner.

With this move, BPV strengthens its contentious capacity at a time when complex litigation and collective actions are gaining weight on the agenda of business law firms, a trend we follow closely in our Big law firms section.

The partner moves market keeps going

Ayo's hiring adds to the intense partner movement the sector is registering this autumn. In recent days we have covered the integration of Álvaro Requeijo Abogados into finReg360 to strengthen financial regulation, Guillermo Rodrigo's move to Osborne Clarke for its real estate area and the birth of Marest Law, Marlen Estévez's new firm.

Moves between firms also raise relevant deontological questions that the profession has well regulated: we analysed the limits in Lawyer moves: deontology and non-compete.

For those following market news, our Big law firms section covers every relevant move with context, and Legal jobs publishes verified offers for lawyers every day.