AB InBev’s legal team has been almost entirely reorganised in the last two years. After recruiting Latin America South (LAS) legal director Nicolás Noro Villagra in July 2016, the multinational drinks company has gone on to hire four more lawyers in Argentina and two lawyers in other LAS countries. Today, the department covering Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay is comprised of 14 lawyers, two paralegals and one law student intern, with none of those lawyers and the intern being based in Argentina. Noro explains the roles of key members in the team: ‘Marcelo Gattei, our litigation manager, has been with the company for over 30 years. He oversees and manages a wide variety of litigation cases, including product liability, taxes, criminal, labour and commercial cases. Tomás Hermida Zapiola, our legal manager, oversees all corporate and commercial aspects, including marketing, sales, corporate maintenance, finance.

He usually is the lead counsel in key negotiations, including our joint venture with Nestlé and our bottling relationship with PepsiCo. Francisco Ramos, our compliance manager, oversees our compliance program and compliance investigations. Santiago Marques, is the legal manager for ZX Ventures. He is responsible for providing support to our disruptive growth team’. Noro Villagra also highlighted senior attorneys Antonella Amoroso, Ainhoa Ferretti and Yanina Capano as important team figures. Together the LAS legal function has worked on a prolific set of key transactions, matters and cases that have a significant business impact in the last two years. These include a filing before the antitrust agency on the global acquisition of SAB Miller, implementing a strong compliance program, advising the latest tax reform in Argentina and coordinating AB InBev´s renewable energy project in Argentina, as part of fulfilling the company’s worldwide goal of using only renewable energies by 2025. It is also credited for managing one of the largest brands portfolios in Argentina and a brand swap agreement with Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU) valued at over US$300m.

In fact, its negotiations with external parties mark the LAS legal team out as one of the region’s top legal departments. It was heavily involved in the negotiation of several marketing and sponsorship agreements, including the sponsorship of the national football league and its two biggest football clubs, Boca Juniors and River Plate. The team also negotiated and renewed a joint venture with Nestlé (Eco de los Andres) for the production, distribution and sale of water products, including Glaciar and Eco de los Andres spring water, and also negotiated an agreement with Red Bull for the exclusive distribution of Red Bull in Argentina.

With such a long recent history in tangibly contributing to the business, Noro Villagra can highly praise the team’s abilities: ‘As the legal director I can’t be prouder of the team that we have, having achieved many things in a short period of time. Even though most of the team has been with the company less than two years, we were able to position the legal team as a business partner and trusted advisor. That is an incredible achievement in a fast-paced consumer company’.