Practice areas

Banking & finance; capital markets; project finance; M&A; joint ventures; corporate & commercial

Introduction

Rafael A Morales is the managing partner of Morales & Justiniano. Previously, he was the managing partner of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan after being the head of its banking, finance and securities practice group.

Morales has had much recognition for his legal work, including citations in Euromoney Legal Media Group’s “Guide to the World’s Leading Banking Lawyers” and Asian Legal Business’ “List of 100 pre-eminent Asia-Pacific Lawyers.” He has been cited as a leading lawyer by IFLR1000, Legal 500, Asialaw Profiles and Who’s Who Legal. Chambers Asia-Pacific classified him as an eminent practitioner in banking and finance.

Morales finished his bachelor of arts in political science (cum laude) at the University of the Philippines, where he also took his bachelor of laws (cum laude and class valedictorian). After his LLM at the University of Michigan, where he was a DeWitt Fellow, he trained as a foreign attorney at Rosenman Colin Freund Lewis & Cohen in New York. He later became a foreign attorney at Anderson Mori & Rabinowitz in Tokyo.

He was president of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, an organisation of lawyers from more than 65 jurisdictions with an interest in the Asia-Pacific region. He is a member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Philippine Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, American Bar Association, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations, and the Alpha Sigma Fraternity.

He is a professorial lecturer at the College of Law of the University of the Philippines. Morales authored two books: “The Philippine General Banking Law (Annotated)” and “The Philippine Securities Regulation Code (Annotated)” as well as numerous legal articles.

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