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The legal team senior team is composed with legal regional counsel, a legal director for México and a senior legal manager for Central América.
For México, Narciso Sánchez is in charge of the legal matters of the Mexican entities with an internal team of nine lawyers and one assistant.
For Central America, Hugo Barrientos is in charge of the legal matters of the Central American entities, with an internal team of four lawyers.
The team handle corporate affairs, franchise, environment, government relations, real estate contracts, publicity, foreign investment, antitrust and trademarks matters. The team also supervises civil, commercial, criminal, and labour proceedings through the most qualified law firms.
The team participated in a negotiation of a credit facility that includes all the entities of the group in different jurisdictions. It was a negotiation that took approximately nine months to finish and the team needs to coordinate internal teams and also external advisors.
One of the most relevant legislations that impacts our industry is the approval by the congress of the Republic of Guatemala of part-time hiring. For certain industries these types of employees are important because of the rush hours that are handled, in addition is also an opportunity for example for mothers and young students, as the schedule is flexible, they can get experience while studying and help them generate extra income without neglecting their personal activities.
The team is focused on the execution on strategic transactions/initiatives including M&A and corporate restructure in order to improve efficiencies among the group. The integration of both regions, since 2014, has been an enriching experience. Both teams have grown and support each other. There has been constant learning, organisation and support.
As we operate and work with different regions (México, Central America) and also work with different law firms in different countries, is very important to have an effective access to internet services as all day we are in constant communication. Different tools are really very effective, by Whatsapp questions can be asked and answered instantaneously. Also there are different tools that give quick access to files that help the team manage long distance projects.
Reviewing with all the areas involved the strategy of the company in every single project and aligned each team. It’s important to appoint a leader of each project, this will help to ensure achieve the results keeping a daily track of deliverables and keep some order to those various tasks and deadlines. It’s important to established a step plan and follow ups daily. If there are so many tasks, never be afraid to delegate to different members of the team.
The in-house legal department in all companies is a support function that, in many people minds, does not shine, but it is the leader’s job to make this happen and communicate other areas the key role that a support area plays to avoid possible contingencies for the company. The in-house legal team is a strategic consideration for companies, and as well as being in charge of legal responsibilities, lawyers also need to have a global vision of the business and must support the internal teams across a number of different aspects besides legal ones. The in-house legal team is essential in every decision and of course must integrate members. Teams can take better decisions than individuals alone, as in my opinion group thinking always generates good results as you can see different perspectives on a single project. The team-building culture in a company is key as this always helps it to provide quick and effective advice to internal clients. The challenge of the in-house legal team is to understand the business, to help manage pressure points, to help with strategies and communicate effectively to other business areas the risks and issues that are involved in every decision. This means that it is very important to balance legal knowledge with business sense. The in-house legal team’s ethical behaviour is a fundamental part of what it does, and the team should never set aside ethical values which should permeate the entire company. In other words, not everything is what written law says, it is only a part of this when it comes to making a business-ethical decision within a company. I am convinced that the in-house team is a key component to business success. The in-house legal team should be able to shine!
