Henry O. Freese-Souffront

Biography

Mr. Freese-Souffront is a civil and commercial litigator who handles a wide range of complex disputes. His practice focuses on maritime and admiralty law matters, high profile commercial construction disputes, distribution/franchise disputes, insurance litigation, and lender liability cases. His other practice areas include the defense of personal injury and wrongful death claims, and handling termination or non-renewal disputes under The Petroleum Marketing Practices Act.  

He provides correspondent services to some of the most important protection and indemnity clubs in the maritime field and has successfully defended them from complex personal injury complaints and cargo claims. He has had significant bench and jury trial experience. 

From 2004 to 2007, he successfully defended a multinational publicly-traded company from one of the first “whistle blower” claims brought under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act filed in Puerto Rico.

He is ranked as a leading attorney in the Litigation and in the Corporate and M&A Law fields of the Best Lawyers in Puerto Rico guide. Until recently he served as the firm’s Professional Development Committee Chairman and now Chairs the firm's Strategic Planning Committee. He also  served as instructor of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure review course sponsored by the Puerto Rico Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

Mr. Freese-Souffront holds two German language certificates from the University of Puerto Rico.

Representative Cases

Some of Mr. Freese-Souffront’s representative cases include:

• Sultán v. Pleasure Craft Contender 25', 139 F. Supp. 2d 230 (DPR): Precedent-setting case raising several issues of first impression in our district concerning the supremacy of maritime law over state law
• MOAC v. Lilac Marine Corporation, 296 F.Supp.2d 91 (DPR): Finding that clients - steel bar seller and its insurer - were real parties in interest to bring COGSA claim against vessel owner, even though title to the goods had passed to buyer at port of loading, because seller had assumed buyer’s loss when it granted buyer price reductions as compensation for damage
• Matosantos Commercial Corporation v. SCA Tissue North America, LLC, 369 F.Supp.2d 191 (DPR): Granting motions in limine to exclude plaintiff’s Act 75 expert report and finding evidence of pre-existing indemnity agreement inadmissible at jury trial
• CPA Group International, Inc. v. American International Insurance Company of Puerto Rico, 202 WL 31944044 (DPR): Denying motion that sought to dismiss - under abstention grounds - the declaratory judgment complaint filed by clients in connection with multimillion dollar suit involving the North Coast Superaqueduct project

Practices

News & Publications