Alejandro Piera

As one of the firms founding partners, Alejandro Piera has extensive experience in advising foreign clients in conducting businesses in Paraguay. His areas of practice include arbitration, foreign investment, M&A, intellectual property & information technology, aviation and maritime law.

In the aviation field in Paraguay, Alejandro has actively participated in various law reform initiatives, such as the design of the open skies policy, the deregulation of airfares, the development of tax incentives to attract foreign aircraft operators, and the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative to build a new terminal for the Asuncion airport.

Alejandro’s legal practice has also benefited from a significant international exposure. For a number of years, Alejandro served as Permanent Advisor to the Diplomatic Mission of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal, Quebec, where he advised on legal, policy, regulatory, and environmental issues. As rapporteur of ICAO’s Legal Committee, he substantially contributed to the modernization of the Tokyo Convention 1963 – a process that ultimately led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol 2014. Alejandro was elected vice-chair of ICAO’s Legal Committee.

In the past, Alejandro also served as Senior Legal Counsel of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). At IATA, Alejandro was responsible for international regulatory matters and international lawmaking at ICAO. Alejandro is an arbitrator of the Shanghai International Arbitration Center and he is also a columnist of the business journal 5 Dias.

In addition to having taught for a number of years at the National University of Asuncion, Alejandro has served as an external instructor on aviation law courses of IATA’s Training and Development Institute (ITDI). Alejandro has lectured in Canada, the US, Asia, Europe and South America. He is a frequent speaker at various international law fora.

Alejandro has written extensively. Amongst others, in 2015, Eleven International Publishing released his new book titled Greenhouse Gases from International Aviation: Legal and Policy Issues. Likewise, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law published his article titled “Will the New ICAO – Beijing Instrument Build a Chinese Wall for International Aviation Security” (co-authored with Michael Gill). Alejandro also authored the “Aircraft Repossession and Enforcement: Practical Aspects in Paraguay” in Aircraft Repossession and Enforcement: Practical Aspects, edited by Ravi Nath and Berend Crans (United Kingdom: Wolters Kluwer, 2008).