CARLA E. SANTAMARIA-SEÑA

Ms. Carla E. Santamaria-Seña is one of the firm’s four female partners. She specializes in labor, civil, family, arbitration and intellectual property law. She litigates a broad range of civil and criminal cases. She also handles civil and commercial arbitration cases and has appeared before the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission and the Philippine Dispute Resolution Center, Inc. for Siemens, Inc., ETSI, Inc. and Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. Together with some of her other partners, Ms. Santamaria-Seña, is also in the forefront of the firm’s family law practice concentrating on estate settlement, annulment, adoption and property relations. Ms. Santamaria-Seña has extensive experience in labor litigation. She has represented the following clients in termination disputes, certification elections, preventive mediation, and compulsory and voluntary arbitration: Siemens, Inc., Dole Philippines, Inc., Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc., Ginebra San Miguel, Inc. (formerly La Tondena Distillers, Inc.), AB Systems, Inc., ETSI Technologies, Inc., BP Southeast Asia, Inc. (an affiliate of British Petroleum), Unilever Philippines, Inc., California Manufacturing Corporation, Inc., Standard Chartered Bank, Inc. and Equitable-PCI Bank, Inc. She has participated in several major collective bargaining negotiations and deadlocks for Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc., Cosmos Bottling Philippines, Inc., and Hacienda Luisita. Ms. Santamaria-Seña was named Deputy Head of the firm’s Intellectual Property Law Department in 2005. As such, she handles the filing of applications for trademark registration and issuance of patents for both local and foreign clients. She has worked for the cancellation, as well as, opposed pending applications for registration, of infringing marks. She has advised clients on their rights and obligations under the Intellectual Property Code and the remedies available to them under its Implementing Rules and Regulations. Ms. Santamaria-Seña was born in Manila, Philippines in 1970. She was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1996, garnering the 5th highest average among the examinees. She obtained her Bachelor of Laws degree (valedictorian) degree in 1995 from the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law, where she also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the UST Law Review. She has been a professor at the UST Faculty of Civil Law since 1997 teaching Persons and Family Relations, Obligations and Contracts, Wills and Succession, Property and Credit Transactions. She was named Most Outstanding Faculty Member in 2004. Prior to this, she obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics major in Actuarial Science in 1990, also from the same university.