Lawyer Ary Mattos Filho, co-founder of the renowned firm that bears his name and one of the creators of the FGV law school (Fundação Getulio Vargas), died this Monday (1st) at the age of 85 due to lung issues.
With an extensive career in the legal field, he held positions such as (Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission), the capital market regulatory body, and judge at the TIT (Tax and Fee Court of the State of São Paulo).
Born in São Paulo, he graduated in law and completed a master’s degree in commercial law and a doctorate in tax from USP. He specialized in international taxation at Harvard (USA), where he also obtained a master’s degree and post-doctorate in law.
In 1992, with Otávio Uchôa Veiga Filho, Pedro Luciano Marrey Jr. and Roberto Quiroga, he founded Mattos Filho — one of the largest law firms in the country, with a full-service structure and lawyers from different areas of law.
In the beginning, the firm worked in financial law, with the experience of Mattos Filho; in the tributary, with Marrey and Quiroga; in real estate, a segment headed by Veiga Filho; and a little in the corporate area.
“We have never been afraid to undertake, expand areas, invest in the office. And this is a characteristic: either you believe in what you are doing, or you become timid and things don’t move forward”, stated Mattos Filho at the celebration of the firm’s 30th anniversary.
“We learned how to repair the plane in flight,” said the lawyer at the time. “Today, when I know the present, I would go back to the past and say: ‘Do it all over again’, because this business will work.”
In a statement, the firm highlighted the legacy of learning, entrepreneurship and generosity left, “which marked the history of law and legal education in Brazil”.
In the same 1992, he chaired the federal commission to prepare a tax reform proposal, the first since the enactment of 1988. It took almost 30 years before one was enacted.
He worked on the creation of FGV Direito SP in 2002, of which he was the first director. According to him, law graduates completed their university courses with training that was far from the market, according to an interview given to in 2006. Today, the college’s strong point is precisely private law and areas related to business reality.
“Due to his exceptional intellectual value, his idealism and selflessness demonstrated daily, professor Ary Oswaldo was simultaneously a catalyst and an inducer for the beginning of a true revolution in national legal education”, stated Carlos Simonsen Leal, president of FGV, in a letter sent on the occasion of the tribute to Mattos Filho with the title of director emeritus of the institution, in 2012.
The IASP (São Paulo Lawyers Institute), to which he was associated, classified him as a “lawyer of national reference and a central figure in the construction of a modern, entrepreneurial legal practice committed to the institutional development of law in Brazil”.
The entity says that Mattos Filho was a professor, jurist and visionary leader who marked the academic and professional life of the country, having contributed to the strengthening of business practices in Brazil and training generations of professionals.
Ary Mattos Filho leaves behind three children.
