Team size: 3 in-house lawyers in Uruguayan operation

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

As a legal department specialised in procurement, our role is to adopt a proactive and strategic approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks that could impact our organisation’s operations and reputation. In the 24/7 food and beverage industry, guaranteeing continuous supply is non-negotiable — and legal must operate as a strategic enabler of that mission ensuring responsible and resilient supply.

Our legal team closely monitors potential legal and commercial risks, conducting in-depth analyses to understand their impact across the supply chain. Crucially, our efforts are aligned with the broader business strategy. During times of instability or crisis, it is essential that legal counsel fully understand shifting business priorities.

From a procurement perspective, ensuring a responsible and uninterrupted supply of high-impact materials is a top priority. We actively work to improve supplier relationships through strict adherence to compliance requirements at international level; transparent and consistent communication; and regular contract reviews, especially for force majeure clauses, termination rights, and other critical provisions.

We also engage in constructive negotiations with our suppliers to secure mutually beneficial outcomes. This helps protect the organisation’s long-term interests while preserving key business relationships.

Our success is based on solid and agile procedures that clearly define roles and responsibilities. These processes are designed to integrate legal and compliance considerations from the outset, maintaining open lines of communication with internal procurement, legal teams and suppliers worldwide. We monitor our performance on KPIs that are tracked monthly and annually. These KPIs assess: the quality of relationships with suppliers; the effectiveness of implemented best practices; and benchmarking against market leaders. We believe in regularly communicating results to ensure continuous improvement.

Looking ahead, we are actively integrating innovative technologies, finalising the implementation of a CLM that integrates procurement policies, as well as compliance and legal requirements, and provides a complete report of activities and timings. What is next? Artificial Intelligence is the answer, we are integrating it, and we look forward to improving the use of generative AI in our procurement/legal department. These tools enhance our ability to anticipate risk, automate routine tasks, and make data-driven decisions that improve both efficiency and compliance.

What are the main cases or transactions that you have been involved in recently?

In recent years, our legal department has strategically aligned with procurement to support the identification, research, and development of alternative suppliers. This proactive approach is part of a broader effort to ensure that all suppliers comply with our internal standards on human rights, labour practices, and environmental sustainability.

We recognise the critical importance of engaging all stakeholders and business partners in advancing responsible and ethical practices across the supply chain. As part of this commitment, in 2022, Grupo Mariposa adhered to the UN Global Compact and, in 2023, to the Partnership for Central America, reinforcing our commitment to conduct business in accordance with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct.

This adherence reflects our continued dedication to embedding sustainability, transparency, and ethical standards into every aspect of our daily activities and obviously into procurement processes. By doing so, we aim not only to mitigate risk, but also to drive long-term value and accountability throughout our operations and business partners.

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?

Grupo Mariposa adhered in 2013 to the UN Global Comact United Nations and works constantly in many programs, principals and standards to consider sustainability practices on our main production activities.

In this regard, we promote the circular economy by reducing the use of materials from the design stage (e.g. lighting preform bottles), implementing effective models for the recovery of post-consumer packaging and guaranteeing its recycling, and using recycled resin. Among other activities, the role of General Counsel, at local and corporate level, is to enter into the necessary agreements with suppliers and strategic partners, considering these goals of the organisation and working with all areas of manufacture, finance and logistics to achieve them.

In 2022, CBC issued a ESG Bond – green bond recognised by LatinFinance Magazine as the “Corporate ESG Deal of the Year” and as the best sustainability bond issuer of the year, “ESG Bond Deal of the Year”, at the prestigious Bonds & Loans Latin America and Caribbean 2022 awards. The issuance aroused great interest from investors, demonstrating confidence in the company’s financial performance and its long-term sustainability agenda being legal team a great team player with an important role to achieve this company’s extraordinary goal.

In 2024, Grupo Mariposa participated in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, as the only Central American company at this important event, under the banner of “Rebuilding Trust”. Juan Pablo Mata, CEO of Grupo Mariposa, was invited as a speaker in a session titled: “The Alliance for Equitable Transition”.

At Grupo Mariposa, we believe in the power of combining talent, passion, and excellence to achieve our dreams and be part of the solutions for building a better future. Our mission is to develop values to catalyse a positive impact on the world, with these values present throughout organization, from procurement to sales, and across the whole supply chain. “