What are the most significant cases, projects or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

During the last year, we’ve been developing high-value commercial contracts with local suppliers and service providers to support operational scaling, handling labor and compliance matters related to the industry, and strengthening policies regarding the commercial expansion in our country. This has involved close coordination with cross-functional teams to ensure that legal strategies are aligned with business goals, while mitigating risks in dynamic regulatory environments. Also, we have supported several international transactions and distribution agreements to support our growing sales channels across borders.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Identifying potential legal risks in different crisis scenarios and developing legal response protocols for each case, such as communication strategies with stakeholders. We also include clauses in our contracts about force majeure, termination, and dispute resolutions that are adaptable to uncertain situations. It is important to build a forward-looking legal risk radar, monitoring regulatory changes in tax, labour, environmental and data protection laws.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

As with other departments, the legal team is expected to modernise its own infrastructure, from contract management to real-time compliance monitoring. This is an opportunity to secure investment in legal operations and analytics tools. By leveraging these tools, we can improve efficiency, gain actionable insights from data, and shift a traditional role from reactive problem-solvers to proactive business partners. This includes the strategic use of artificial intelligence, which is rapidly transforming the role of in-house legal departments.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?

For an 80-year-old coffee industry business, the cause of corporate integrity and ethical governance is not just relevant, it’s essential to sustain legacy, trust and long-term value. Upholding these principles is our way of honouring the legacy of previous generations while laying a solid ethical foundation for the next. Our core focus remains in protecting the “Café Santo Domingo” brand heritage built over three generations, reinforcing consumer loyalty and deepening relationships with farmers, distributors and regulators.

Looking forward, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape in Dominican Republic over the next 5–10 years that companies should prepare for?

There are several legal and regulatory trends that we should prepare for, like the strengthening of regulatory and compliance frameworks, modernisation of the legal system, stricter environmental regulations – especially in our sector, which includes agriculture and manufacturing -, as well as increased focus on data protection and cybersecurity. We must tailor a strategic readiness framework for these trends.