Event Report

On Thursday 18th June, Legal 500 returned to Athens for the GC Summit: Greece. Hosted at the N.J.V. Athens Plaza in Syntagma Square, the summit brought together the country’s leading in-house counsel for a day of knowledge-sharing, practical insight and professional exchange, exploring the regulatory, operational and strategic forces shaping the legal, business and investment landscape in Greece.

Katie Martin, event content & research manager at Legal 500, opened proceedings before introducing the first panel, titled ‘Strategic investments in Greece – emerging real estate investment models’, in association with Thesis Law Firm. Kloy Tsiaga, founding & managing partner at Thesis Law Firm, was joined by her colleague Marios Bouloukos, counsel at the firm, Kakia (Kyriaki) Tzemou of Prodea Investments, and George Kormas, member of the board, Trastor REIC for a focused discussion on the evolving landscape of strategic investment in Greece. They examined how new real estate models are reshaping opportunities across development, infrastructure, hospitality, tourism and mixed-use assets, and unpacked the legal and financial factors currently driving investor interest in the Greek market.

The second session, ‘The exposed GC – personal liability, criminal risk and where the line is’, turned the focus inward onto the general counsel role itself. Moderated by Dionysios Pantazis, general counsel for Southeast Europe at Huawei Technologies, the panel featured Evy Kyttari, legal director at Athenian Brewery, and Maria Stamatopoulou, general counsel at Siemens AE. The discussion addressed how the GC role has expanded in step with rising accountability, with legal leaders now signing off on sustainability reports, sanctions risk assessments and AI governance frameworks – areas where personal exposure is real and the legal boundaries are still being drawn. The panellists set out where Greek law places the GC when things go wrong, what regulators look for first, and the decisions that have put legal leaders on the wrong side of a line they thought they understood.

Following a coffee break, attendees returned for a session in association with ALG Manousakis Law Firm on ‘The rise of bio-manufacturing hubs in Greece’. Panagiotis Polychronopoulos, senior associate, and Chara Grigoriadou, associate, both of ALG Manousakis Law Firm, were joined by Evi Mathiou, legal, compliance & quality associate director at Novo Nordisk, and Eleana Nikolopoulou, director, legal and compliance at Lavipharm. The panel explored why multinational pharmaceutical companies are redirecting investment from traditional offshoring destinations in Asia toward stable, near-shore European jurisdictions, and made the case for Greece’s growing AI ecosystem and “intelligent manufacturing” capabilities. Drawing on recent legislative developments including R&D super-deductions, patent box regimes and streamlined licensing frameworks for strategic investments, speakers offered a practical framework for evaluating Greece as a jurisdiction of choice for life sciences investment, and for structuring projects that capture available incentives while managing AI-specific regulatory and IP risk.

The morning and midday sessions closed with panel moderated by Christina Koliatsi, group chief legal counsel of Growthfund – ‘Greece in the crossfire – managing geopolitical risk when your business is caught in the middle’, She was joined by Sofia Michelaki, chief legal & governance officer at DESFA, and Katerina Mangana, legal affairs director at ION. The panel discussed Greece’s exposure at one of Europe’s most commercially sensitive crossroads – a shipping industry moving cargo through heavily sanctioned corridors, an energy sector still unwinding decades-old dependencies, and banks maintaining correspondent relationships under scrutiny from regulators in Washington and Brussels. For Greek GCs operating across the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa, the panellists agreed, geopolitical risk has stopped being a macro conversation and become a daily operational one, surfacing in contract review, board reporting and regulator conversations that few anticipated having three years ago.

After a lunch break, the programme continued into the afternoon with two further sessions, before Legal 500 delivered closing remarks to bring the day’s proceedings to a close.

The first was a fireside chat on ‘what does the CEO actually want from their general counsel?’ featuring Alexios Andriopoulos, head of legal & compliance at Welcome Pickups and Dr. Nancy Verra, chief legal regulatory & compliance officer at OPAP S.A.

The sessions were rounded up with a keynote address by Kostas Argyropoulos, group general counsel at Space Hellas Group on ‘The autonomous enterprise: what general counsel must govern next.’ Kostas addressed how Agentic AI changes the security landscape in companies, as new markets are forming alongside it will be shaped by those who build now, delving into governance and the economics of Cybersecurity and AI in corporate ecosystems, as a strategic work of reimagining what organisations will become.

The summit concluded with a relaxed networking reception, giving delegates the chance to unwind over refreshments, continue the day’s conversations and build new professional relationships extending well beyond the event itself.

Legal 500 would like to extend its thanks to Thesis Law Firm and ALG Manousakis Law Firm for their sponsorship of the summit, and to all the speakers and attendees who made the day such a success. We look forward to returning to Athens next year.