Juan Franco is an associate at the firm’s Miami office handling a wide range of matters, including high-stakes and complex business and commercial disputes, securities litigation and shareholder disputes, labor and employment compliance and litigation, and other areas of law, including international law, fiduciary disputes, premises liability, and theft of trade secrets. Mr. Franco’s international practice involves cross-border commercial litigation and his transnational litigation experience includes complex jurisdictional disputes.

Mr. Franco also handles transactional matters and provides general counsel services, including contract drafting and negotiation, advising on corporate governance and regulatory matters, and advising on general business law matters to companies of all sizes, from multibillion-dollar foreign and domestic corporations to local enterprises across various industries, and individuals such as company executives, business owners and professionals.

Prior to joining Cole, Scott & Kissane, Mr. Franco practiced at a prestigious complex commercial litigation and white-collar defense firm in Miami, where he worked on a number of high-profile cases, including a $200-million dollar Medicare fraud and kickback conspiracy, a professional sports conspiracy to distribute illegal substances, and a $1-billion embezzlement scheme involving a foreign government.

Mr. Franco attended Florida International University, where he received a B.A. in Business Administration. He then earned his Juris Doctor degree from Samford University, Cumberland School of Law. While in law school, Mr. Franco earned Dean’s List honors, achieved the highest grade in International Law, and was a teaching assistant for the law school’s legal writing class. He also interned for the Honorable John W. Thornton for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, who headed the complex business litigation division for a number of years.

Mr. Franco is fluent in Spanish and has extensive experience working on cases involving complex legal and business documents in Spanish.

Representative Experience:

• Obtained numerous dismissals for multinational foreign corporation from lawsuits in the United States on forum non conveniens grounds, binding forum selection and choice of law provisions, and/or for lack of personal jurisdiction
• Represented directors and officers of a multinational architectural design corporation with international presence and with Chinese parent company in a breach of fiduciary duty and corporate waste action
• Successfully argued at multiple motion for summary judgment hearings, obtaining dismissal of lawsuits against clients
• Prepared terms and conditions applicable to vacationing guests of international resort chain

Publications:

Abuses of the Act of State Doctrine, 50 U. Mem. L. Rev. (2020)