Miguel Brás da Cunha

Miguel Brás da Cunha is a founding partner of Bandeira, Reis Lima & Brás da Cunha (BRLC) in Porto, and the recipient of the Banking Regulation Lawyer of the Year in Portugal award at the 2024 Corporate INTL Global Awards. The recognition reflects a career spent at the intersection of banking, financial regulation and capital markets, backed by both practising experience and an academic profile in the field.

Admitted to the Portuguese Bar Association since 1992, Mr Brás da Cunha holds a law degree from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Porto and a master's degree in comparative legal sciences from Coimbra. Alongside his practice he teaches at the University of Porto's Faculty of Economics and at Porto Business School, a combination that keeps his regulatory work closely connected to developments in economics and finance. His grounding in securities and financial instruments is reinforced by professional experience linked to the Porto Stock Exchange, giving him a practical understanding of how markets and their participants operate.

BRLC was established in January 1995, bringing together lawyers who shared professional experience from the Porto Stock Exchange and academic expertise. The firm sets out to combine experience with innovation in serving national and international corporate clients, and its work is anchored in financial law, particularly securities and financial instruments regulation, alongside capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. This focus is directly relevant to the banking regulation matters for which Mr Brás da Cunha has been recognised, where advice frequently turns on the detailed rules governing financial institutions, instruments and market conduct.

The firm complements its financial and corporate strengths with a wider service offering that includes intellectual property, tax, contract, labour, real estate and construction law, spanning both advisory and litigation work. That breadth allows BRLC to support clients across the full range of issues that businesses encounter, while its core financial and capital markets practice remains a distinguishing feature. For banks, investment firms and corporate clients navigating Portugal's regulatory environment, the firm offers counsel that pairs technical regulatory knowledge with an understanding of commercial and market realities.

Being named Banking Regulation Lawyer of the Year in Portugal places Mr Brás da Cunha among the individual practitioners the Corporate INTL Global Awards seek to identify, those whose expertise and service set them apart in their field. From BRLC's Porto base, he continues to advise on the banking, securities and financial regulation questions that shape how institutions and their clients operate in the Portuguese market.