What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

In 2021, we coordinated a registered public offering of a green bond of US$400m and US$700m in the US. We also coordinated an equity offering of US$1.55bn and the IPO of a SPAC in partnership with Kaszek Ventures. Also in 2021, my team managed to issue the first transparency report of a company in the history of Latin America, among many other important achievements.

Do you use any “legal tech” products and do you find them a helpful management device?

Indeed. Early in times we understood the challenge of being in-house counsel to a digital economy leader, as tech innovation companies demand innovative solutions. We must be disruptive, creative, flexible and fully dedicated lawyers to provide a world class service. My view is we must be a business partner helping it grow, from the legal standpoint, while also handling legal work that can be commoditised more efficiently.

Around six or seven years ago we decided to create a legal operations department focused on operations and law enforcement, on admin, finance and vendors management, on projects and systems, and lastly on education. The operations team at our legal department has been the most innovative and disruptive in terms of using bots and AI solutions to manage scalable day-to-day operations. Today, more than 40 BOTs are running in our systems to cover the different needs of the department. We also outsource data entry specialists to simplify the internal management of databases and management systems, such as the dispute resolutions platform, the IP portfolio management system and the law enforcement tools.

Our docketing system of contracts, cases, letters, orders, decisions, and others is 100% cloud-based, and our entire team works with cloud-based solutions. We encourage all our vendors to also use cloud-based solutions, to have a simple and real time iteration of documents and information management.

How much influence do you, as a general counsel, have on the diversity and inclusion policies of your organisation?

Being diverse and inclusive is in our DNA. We believe that creating and developing diverse teams helps us reflect the diversity of the millions of users we have and it’s a base of our innovative and creative spirit. Mercado Libre is recognised for being a diverse and inclusive company, creating and offering a space where everybody can feel comfortable, with no biases and no roles conceived for a specific gender.