Neftalí Garro

Neftalí is a Partner of BLP in the San José office. He specializes in Business Law and Insurance & Reinsurance, which practice areas he leads for Central America in coordination with other lawyers. 

In his 25 years of experience, he has advised on mergers and acquisitions, asset acquisition procedures, corporate reorganizations, and agency and distribution agreements, where he has represented national and transnational companies and dealt with corporate governance issues. 

In mergers and acquisitions, he has extensive experience advising acquirers and sellers in different industries, such as insurance, energy, private security, hospitality, educational services, fisheries, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing. He has experience in all phases of the M&A process, including preparatory negotiations, due diligence, negotiation of transaction documents, and transaction closing and post-closing. 

In Insurance & Reinsurance, Neftalí has extensive knowledge in licensing and regulatory matters, reinsurance transactions, insurance contracts, and complex litigation in this area, in which he has represented major Central American insurers and international reinsurers with interests in the region. He is regarded as an expert lawyer and a leader in insurance matters, earning respect and admiration of clients and colleagues for his trajectory in the Insurance & Reinsurance practice. He is considered a point of reference, one of Central America’s most prominent insurance lawyers. Clients highly appreciate and commend his leadership, as well as his extensive technical knowledge in insurance matters. 

Since 2018, Neftali has been a member of the board of directors of Interlaw, a leading international network of law firms ranked as “elite” by Chambers & Partners, where he led the M&A group in Latin America for several years. He is also Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Costa Rican-Italian Chamber of Industry and Commerce and a member of the Civil and Commercial Law Commission of the Bar Association of Costa Rica. His other memberships include Asociación Costa Rica Por Siempre, Costa Rica’s environmental fund, and The Government Corporate Institute of Costa Rica. He has served as president of the Costa Rican Association of International Law Philip C. Jessup (ACODI).  

In 2018, he was the first Central American lawyer invited to join the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC).  He is also an officer of the Women Lawyers’ Committee and has served on the International Bar Association (IBA) Insurance Committee since 2018. 

Furthermore, he was the president of the board of directors of Insuralex (2019-2020), and President of the Costa Rican Association of Insurance Law and Bonds (ACODES), AIDA Costa Rica Section, 2012-2024. In addition, he is the coordinator of the Legal Committee of the Costa Rican Association of Private Insurers (AAP) and an arbitrator in the list of Eligible Arbitrators for Dispute Resolution in Financial Services of the Free Trade Agreement between Central America, the United States and the Dominican Republic. He has been a speaker on various topics of insurance law and regulation at the Interamerican Federation of Insurance Companies (FIDES), the Panamerican Surety Association (APF), the Panamerican Confederation of Insurance Producers (COPAPROSE), the International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration and the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (CICA – AmCham). 

As an international commercial arbitrator, he has been a member and also chaired several arbitration panels, including the Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (CCA) of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce and the International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (CICA) of the American-Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb) of London. 

Since 2007 he has been a professor at the University of Costa Rica’s School of Law, where he has taught courses in Private Law, Principles of Private Contracts, and Insurance Law. He also lectures on Insurance Marketing at the School of Economics.  

In 2003, he left his associate position at KPMG to become one of the founding lawyers of BLP. He became a BLP Partner in 2005.