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

Over the past year, the legal department has played a key role in several strategic themes, providing legal support for initiatives related to partnerships with third parties for logistics development, especially concerning green hydrogen and liquid fuels. We also provided legal support in the analysis of projects related to the energy transition, including biofuels and process efficiency, ensuring regulatory compliance.

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

In times of instability, our legal approach is based on foresight and strategic guidance. This includes risk analysis of regulatory modifications, reviewing key contractual clauses and supporting executive decision-making with legal insight. Internally, we promote a proactive, collaborative legal culture, centered on institutional resilience.

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?

A key trend I believe legal teams must focus on is the increasing intersection between legal compliance, sustainability, and corporate governance. It is also critical to adopt digital legal tools and automation to promote efficiency but specially to redirect internal resources and specialised knowledge towards high-value advisory work. In today’s complex context, especially within state-owned companies and critical sectors like oil and gas, the in-house counsel must be a trusted strategic advisor at the decision-making table.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

When deciding whether to outsource legal services, we prioritise internal capabilities but require external counsel when we need highly specialised expertise, an independent analysis, or local representation in other jurisdictions is required. Our selection criteria include technical excellence, sector-specific experience, ethical standing, and alignment with the public values that govern our operations. We particularly value those law firms or legal advisors who are able to anticipate potential conflicts, as we find special value in a more preventive rather than reactive approach from the legal management perspective.