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

Over the past year, our legal team has been closely involved in supporting the expansion of JCB business operations across Latin America and Mexico, advising on a wide range of complex commercial, regulatory and governance matters. As a huge multinational operating in a highly competitive and regulated industrial sector, a key priority has been ensuring that our legal framework supports both operational growth and risk resilience.

A significant portion of our work has involved the structuring and negotiation of complex commercial agreements with distributors, suppliers and strategic partners across multiple jurisdictions. In this context, the legal team has played a central role in aligning contractual structures with the company’s long-term commercial strategy while maintaining robust governance and compliance standards. Another important focus has been dispute management and risk mitigation. In emerging markets, legal disputes can escalate quickly due to regulatory complexity, economic volatility and operational pressures. Our approach has therefore been to develop proactive legal strategies that prioritise early risk identification, contractual clarity and structured dispute management mechanisms.

What new pressures are you facing from the business as expectations for legal to act as a strategic partner continue to grow?

In recent years, the expectations placed on in-house legal departments have evolved significantly. Legal teams are no longer viewed solely as technical advisors responsible for mitigating legal exposure; they are increasingly expected to act as strategic partners capable of contributing directly to business performance and organisational resilience. One of the key pressures arising from this shift is the need to combine legal expertise with a deeper understanding of operational and commercial dynamics. In practice, this means that legal leaders must be able to anticipate risks that go beyond traditional legal analysis, including supply-chain disruptions, regulatory changes and cross-border operational challenges.