Toda & Nel-lo hires Remedios García, from Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, as Tax partner

Toda & Nel-lo has signed Remedios García de Ga_p as partner in its Tax practice. The lawyer arrives from Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, where she built her career in tax advice and tax proceedings, in one of the most notable lateral moves of the autumn in the Barcelona market.

A strategic reinforcement

The hire responds to the firm's plan to strengthen its high-complexity tax practice, an area where demand has grown with the multiplication of inspections, the new reporting obligations and the increasing sophistication of corporate structures. García brings experience both in advisory work for companies and family groups and in the defence of clients before the tax authorities and the courts.

For Toda & Nel-lo, a firm with a strong presence in Catalonia and a well-established private client and business practice, the addition fits its growth strategy in recurring, high-value services.

A career built in tax

García has developed her practice advising large companies, family businesses and high-net-worth individuals on tax planning, restructurings and disputes with the tax authorities. Her experience in inspection and penalty proceedings, and in litigation before the economic-administrative and contentious-administrative courts, covers the full cycle of the tax controversy, from the first verification order to the final appeal.

That end-to-end profile - advice and litigation in the same hands - is precisely the one clients value most in the current environment, where an inspection can escalate into a criminal investigation and coordination between specialties is decisive.

Competition for private client tax work

Beyond corporate tax, the Barcelona market is seeing strong demand for advice to family offices and business-owning families on succession, reorganisations and residency changes. The new partner is expected to play a leading role in that segment, one of Toda & Nel-lo's traditional strengths.

The tax market, on the move

The signing comes in a year of intense mobility in the tax teams of large and mid-sized firms. The combination of a more demanding regulatory environment, pressure on fees in commoditised areas and firms' commitment to specialisation has turned experienced tax partners into one of the most contested profiles in the legal market.

Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, for its part, maintains one of the benchmark tax practices in Spain, from which several partners have departed for growth projects in recent years.

The hire also has a generational dimension: firms are competing not only for clients but for teams capable of leading the specialty for the next decade, and lateral partners with their own portfolio and consolidated reputation are the scarcest asset in that race. The Catalan tax market, concentrated in a handful of firms, feels every move of this calibre almost immediately.

The Catalan market as a battleground

Barcelona has consolidated its position as the second hub of Spanish legal business, and competition for tax talent is especially intense among firms with strong roots in the Catalan business fabric. Toda & Nel-lo's move is in line with other reinforcements announced this year by its direct competitors.

The firm has indicated that the incorporation will allow it to expand its offering in tax proceedings and in advice on corporate reorganisations, two areas with growing demand from its client base.

The move also fits the wider battle for tax talent across the market, tracked in our law firms coverage.

More lateral hires and firm strategy in law firms and our coverage of the Spanish legal market.