Senior counsel for Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, Nicolás Cuadros describes the Philip Morris International (PMI) in-house legal team covering the South Cluster as ‘extremely creative, diverse and full of energy’. It has undoubtedly had a major impact on a number of successes for the company, and now looks to take the lead in the company’s transformation towards a ‘smoke-free future’ using new technologies.

‘We want adult smokers to switch from cigarettes to Reduced Risk Products (RRPs) as soon as possible, so we’re currently analysing the regulatory framework for RRPs in the South Cluster’, Cuadros explains. He also gives an example of the RRPs portfolio the company developed to achieve this: ‘We currently have products such as Iqos that heats tobacco instead of burning it, without combustion, fire, ash, or smoke’.

The team has been heavily involved in laying the groundwork for a new regulatory understanding of these products in the markets that PMI operates in. ‘From a legal perspective this is a huge challenge’, says Cuadros, ‘because regulatory restrictions in many countries were inspired by a different product – cigarettes. When these regulations were written, regulators didn’t imagine that products such as Iqos would appear which should be regulated in a different fashion’. Alongside Cuadros, the PM South Cluster legal team is staffed by a number of high-quality legal professionals: Alberto Fortin, Tamara Canete, Agustina Ramet, Pilar Mele and Juan Pablo Reverendo came in for particular praise, and look set to carry on the exceptional record set by former team lead Luciana Tieri, who has transferred to PMI’s Canada operation.