Antonio A. Arias-Larcada 

Mr. Arias-Larcada has developed a general civil and commercial litigation practice with emphasis in bankruptcy, the RICO Act, collections, foreclosure and asset repossession in federal and state courts. He has significant experience in bids and procurement consulting and litigation before nearly all agencies representing companies bidding on government contracts for goods and services ranging from law enforcement aircraft to bone healing medical equipment. He practices extensively before the federal courts and administrative agencies at trial and appellate levels. Mr. Arias also specializes in workouts, medical malpractice, construction law, the petroleum industry, telecommunications, automatic stay violations, critical vendor and educational loan dischargeability issues, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act litigation and consulting, and arbitration claims. He has consulted for several clients in government acquisition of computer hardware and software for major infrastructure projects.

Mr. Arias-Larcada joined the firm in 1988. He regularly lectures on bankruptcy and collections. For the last 15 years Mr. Arias-Larcada has been giving the bankruptcy bar review course sponsored by the FBA. He has published several articles on RICO and bankruptcy issues in local newspapers and is a regular member of the faculty of the National Business Institute where he gives seminars on bankruptcy, collection and ethics.

He has argued several times before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Early in his career at McConnell Valdes he successfully defended a mortgage lender from homeowners who had brought an action to recover millions for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the Truth in Lending (TILA) Act, RESPA and Puerto Rico fraud statutes in connection with the sale of defective luxury housing. The U.S. District Court dismissed the complaint. It was affirmed in Arzuaga-Collazo v. Oriental Federal Savings Bank , 913 F.2d 5 (1st Cir. 1990). He has represented creditors and institutional lenders in major Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the District of Puerto Rico including the Emerito Estrada Rivera, Charlie Auto Sales, Inc, Redondo Construction, Nutritional Resources a/k/a Pueblo Supermarkets and La Electronica, Inc. reorganization cases. Recently, Mr. Arias-Larcada has also represented creditors in CV Entertainment Corp., Atlantis Healthcare, Caguas Lumber Yard, Inc. a/k/a Empresas Masso, Carabel Export, Bora Bora, Inc., PMC Marketing Corp. a/k/a Farmacias El Amal, SEDECO, Abraham Petroleum Corporation and Dr. Pila Hospital in Ponce. In two of these cases Mr. Arias has been in charge of the organization and continuity of the unsecured creditors’ committee acting as Committee Secretary. Mr. Arias-Larcada has had jury trial experience representing Volvo Car Corporation in a RICO and money laundering class action and on the plaintiffs' side in cases of age discrimination under federal and state law. As chairman of the Bids and Procurement Practice Area, Mr. Arias-Larcada successfully represented Bell Helicopter Textron in 1999 in a contentious bid challenge following the award to Bell of a government contract for a new fleet of helicopters for the Puerto Rico Police Department. In 2007, after five years of litigation, he secured the dismissal with prejudice of a commercial dispute against multinational Schlumberger Ltd. in relation to its installation and operation of an inmate public telephone network part of a telecommunications contract involving the Puerto Rico Telephone Company and the Corrections Administration. In 2008, he handled for Shell Trading a successful bid challenge in a multi-million dollar petroleum supply contract before the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. In 2009, Mr. Arias has represented parties in government bids related to parolee electronic monitoring devices and technological solutions to increase tax collections at points of sale. To date, his practice group has consulted or intervened on behalf of firm clients in over 35 different government bids involving a wide spectrum of goods and services.