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

As a key partner in Romania’s ongoing infrastructure development, our legal and business affairs team at PORR has been at the heart of several nationally significant projects. Our work goes beyond pure legal advice; we are deeply involved in the commercial structuring and risk management of these complex endeavors.

A landmark achievement this past year was securing two major public procurement contracts for a critical section of a national railway and a major section of a motorway, as well as a large-scale civil engineering project for a wind park. My team’s role was critical, from analyzing the tender documentation and structuring our bid to negotiating the complex, FIDIC-based contract terms. Our commercially-focused legal strategy was essential in presenting a competitive and compliant bid, directly contributing to this major business win.

On the project execution side, we successfully managed and resolved a series of complex claims on an ongoing infrastructure project, stemming from supply chain disruptions and unforeseen ground conditions. By adopting a proactive and non-adversarial approach, we navigated the contractual mechanisms to reach a negotiated settlement with the contracting authority, thereby avoiding a lengthy and costly dispute resolution process and keeping the project on track.

Finally, we have been driving the local implementation of PORR’s group-wide ESG and compliance programs. This has involved embedding sustainability criteria into our subcontractor agreements and reinforcing our anti-corruption policies, ensuring our operations not only comply with Romanian law but also meet the highest international standards of corporate governance.

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

In the construction industry, instability is a constant—be it from supply chain shocks, sudden material price escalations, or regulatory shifts. My approach is built on contractual foresight, operational agility, and commercial problem-solving.

First, contractual foresight is our primary shield. We don’t use boilerplate contracts. We meticulously draft and negotiate our agreements—especially with clients and key subcontractors—to include robust clauses on price indexation, material substitution, and clear force majeure provisions. This proactive risk allocation at the outset is the most effective way to build resilience.

When a crisis hits—for instance, a critical supplier defaults—we immediately form a cross-functional response team including legal, procurement, and project management. My role is not just to interpret the contract, but to act as a business partner, assessing all commercial options. Can we source an alternative? What are the cost and time implications? What is our negotiating position with the client? We provide clear, pragmatic advice to enable swift and decisive action.

Finally, we believe in continuous improvement. After every significant disruption, we conduct a “lessons learned” meeting to identify weaknesses in our processes or contracts. This feedback loop ensures that each challenge we overcome makes the organisation stronger and better prepared for the future.

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?

As head of legal and business affairs, my role is to translate PORR’s high-level ESG commitments into tangible actions on every construction site. For us, ESG isn’t a report; it’s about how we build. I foster this culture by focusing on operational integration and clear accountability.

First, we integrate ESG principles directly into our core business processes. When we bid for a project, legal works with the technical teams to ensure our proposals highlight sustainable construction methods and materials. In our supply chain, we’ve embedded ESG compliance clauses into our subcontractor agreements, making our partners accountable for meeting our standards on everything from waste management to labour practices.

Second, we champion education and accountability. We run targeted training for our project managers and site engineers on key ESG risks and responsibilities in the construction sector, from environmental permit compliance to health and safety protocols. By empowering our operational teams with the right knowledge, they become the first line of defence in upholding our standards.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company? Can you share an example of a recent legal-led initiative that had a significant impact?

My team operates on the principle that our primary function is to enable profitable and sustainable growth. We are not a back-office function but a proactive partner in achieving PORR’s business objectives, embedding legal strategy into the core of our commercial pursuits.

A recent legal-led initiative with a significant impact was the development of a strategic pre-bid legal risk framework. Historically, the decision to bid on major public tenders was driven primarily by technical and commercial assessments. My team implemented a mandatory legal “gate-review” process, where we perform an in-depth analysis of the tender documentation and draft contracts to identify high-risk clauses, such as unlimited liabilities, unbalanced risk allocations, or ambiguous acceptance criteria.

We created a “risk scorecard” that translates complex legal language into a clear traffic-light report for the management board, providing a firm “go/no-go” recommendation from a legal and business affairs perspective. As a direct result, we have become far more selective, declining to bid on projects with unacceptable risk profiles, which saves significant resources. For the tenders we do pursue, our early legal input strengthens our negotiating position from day one and helps the commercial team price risks more accurately. This initiative has fundamentally shifted our approach from winning projects to winning the right projects.