Francisco Berninzon Ponce was born in 1947 in Lima, Peru. Lima, the Peruvian capital, was the setting for his university education and his legal career, and it has long been the center of the country's higher education and legal profession.
He speaks English and German.
Ponce studied at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, where his professional profile records a bachelor's and law degree with honors. Founded on May 12, 1551, as the Real Universidad de la Ciudad de los Reyes, the institution was the first university officially established in the Americas and remains the oldest continuously operating university on the continent.
The university was known as the University of Lima until 1946, when its present name was officially adopted. Its law program belonged to the faculty of Derecho, which had colonial origins and was one of three colonial-era faculties still functioning in 1969, alongside Letras y Ciencias Humanas and Medicina.
He was admitted to the Peruvian bar in 1974.
Ponce's documented legal career began in Lima. From 1976 to 1985 he worked as a lawyer at Estudio Lavalle, a Lima law practice that professional biographies cite among the prestigious firms of the city.
In 1985 he became a partner in Estudio Martínez, Bellido, Berninzon & Lavalle, a Lima practice with which he remained associated until 1999. Fernando Bellido, who was a senior partner of the same firm from 1986 to 1993, founded Bellido Abogados in 1993.
In 1999 he became a partner of Berninzon & Benavides Abogados, a firm bearing his name together with that of Eduardo Benavides, who was admitted to the bar in 1987. Professional profiles describe his practice as covering contracts and commercial transactions, corporate law, energy, oil and gas, mergers and acquisitions, foreign investment, and mining. A later profile describes him as a partner specializing in corporate and energy law, particularly in the hydrocarbons sector.
Ponce is documented as a member of several bar associations. The Colegio de Abogados de Lima traces its origins to a bar brotherhood established in Lima in 1726 and to a royal decree of July 31, 1804, which authorized the formation of a colegio on the model of the one in Madrid. The institution was recognized as an official body in 1910, and it remains the principal professional association of lawyers in the Lima area.
The International Bar Association, founded in 1947 by representatives of national bar associations, brings together lawyers, bar associations, and law societies from many countries. Individual lawyers were admitted to its membership from 1970. The Inter-Pacific Bar Association, founded in 1991 at a conference in Tokyo, is an association of business and commercial lawyers focused on the Asia-Pacific region.
