Manuel Olivencia

A practicing lawyer since 1960, Mr. Olivencia was the founder and director of the law firm Olivencia-Ballester, now incorporated into Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira.

He is an arbitrator with national and international experience, and belongs to various arbitration institutions.

A professor emeritus of corporate law, Mr. Olivencia has occupied the posts of principal of the Colegio Mayor César Carlos in Madrid, secretary of the Faculty of Law of the University of Seville, secretary of the Instituto Universitario de Ciencias de la Empresa (Business Administration University Institute) of the Universidad de Sevilla, and dean of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the Universidad de Sevilla.

He is a full member of the Seville Royal Academ y of Arts, the Seville Royal Academy of Case Law and Legislation, and of the Madrid Royal Academy of Case Law and Legislation. He is a permanent member o f the Council of Law Reporting (Ministry of Justice).

He is Ambassador Extraordinary of Spain and a delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. He has held posts as a member of the board of directors of the Bank of Spain, general commissioner of the Universal Exhibition of Seville (1992), and a member of the board of the Banco Central Hispano. He also chaired the special committee that drafted the Informe sobre el gobierno de las sociedades (Report on Corporate Governance), also known as the Informe Olivencia (Olivencia Report).

Mr. Olivencia is chair of the committee in Section 2 of the Council of Law Reporting entrusted with draft ing the Employers Statute, and is currently work ing on Book I of the draft bill of the Spanish Commercial Code.

He is a member of the Jerez, Madrid, and Seville bar associations.

He has published various works such as the following:

Escritos jurídicos (Legal Studies) (five volumes, Fundación El Monte, 2005)
Comentario a la Ley de Sociedades Anónimas (Commentary on the Public Limited Companies Act) (co-authored with Garrigues, J. and Uría, R., two volumes, 1976)

Capital mínimo, nacionalidad y domicilio de la sociedad anónima (Minimum capital, Nationality and Domicile of Public Limited Companies-on articles 4 through 6 of the Public Limited Companies Act), Uría, Menéndez and Olivencia

Comentario al Régimen Legal de las Sociedades Mercantiles (Commentary on the Legal Code Regulating Companies)

Disposiciones generales de la Ley de Sociedades Anónimas (General Provisions of the Public Limited Companies Act) (volume III, vol. 1, 2007).

He has also published Arbitraje: una justicia alternativa (Arbitration: An Alternative Justice) (Universidad de Córdoba Press, 2006).

Bachelor of Laws, special distinction, Universidad de Sevilla, 1951

PhD in Case Law (cum laude), Universita di Bologna, 1953

Languages: English, French, Italian and German

Recommended by several directories, including Global Arbitration Review in Arbitration.

Gran Cruz de la Orden de Alfonso X El Sabio. Gran Cruz del Mérito Militar. Medalla de Oro del Consejo Superior de Cámaras de Comercio. Gran Cruz de Isabel la Católica. Gran Cruz de San Raimundo de Peñafort. Cruz de San Jorge (Creu Sant Jordi) de la Generalitat de Cataluña. Gran Insignia de Honor en oro con placa al mérito por la República de Austria (2006).

ABC and Instituto de Estudios Cajasol have decided to grant the "First Legal Career Award" to professor Manuel Olivencia for his long and brilliant career as a jurist and lawyer.