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

The main challenge I have had to face this year is to understand and analyse the best way to implement the changes introduced by the new law on economic crimes that is about to be approved. This regulation is a paradigm change in the field of corporate compliance, since it has a transversal impact on all business and operational units of companies, forcing to rethink the way to generate adequate and sufficient controls according to the line of business and size of each of them. In this sense, it is essential that the legal area leads joint work teams with the different areas, to facilitate the understanding of legal concepts and thus enable a better practical application that allows to have an adequate level of compliance.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

In my opinion, one of the main virtues of the in-house lawyer’s position is the comprehensive knowledge that he or she has of the company’s business and operations. We know the risks of a given operation, but we are fully aware of the opportunities for growth and improvement that it offers, precisely because our role is to facilitate a balance between the two. Therefore, in-house lawyers are in a particularly good position to mobilize changes that add value to the company: on the one hand, at the executive level, through actions specially designed for the company, which allow a more effective management of legal and regulatory aspects; but also at the level of strategic decision making, providing a more complete and general vision of the alternatives offered by the legal approach to optimize the relationship between risk management and the capture of more and better development opportunities for the company. In this sense, one of the main challenges that legal managers face is precisely to make the business interiorize that legal support is a benefit, since we can add concrete and substantive value to the company and its business. On the other hand, the fact of being part of the company allows us to incorporate its culture, objectives and values, which allows us to have the necessary insight to be part of the changes.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

If we want to achieve the objective mentioned above, that is, to be part of the relevant changes in our company, we in-house lawyers need to build strong ties and trusting relationships with our business partners. To achieve this, one of the main elements that we must reinforce is to understand and have a good knowledge of the company’s business. In my opinion, this is the most relevant point, since it is the only way for the rest of the areas to perceive the legal area as part of the strategic teams, as another partner that understands what the business wants and needs, what its objectives are, and which is not limited to raising risks, but takes an active role in limiting them, but also in managing them. In line with this point, it seems to me particularly important to be able to adequately communicate the legal concepts and explain them in a clear, simple and concise manner, so that all areas can quickly incorporate the legal components of a given project and weigh them within it for decision making. On the other hand, I think it is also very important to approach our business partners, their challenges and the resolution of their problems from a particularly collaborative point of view, and not only position ourselves as a mere legal advisor. This means, of course, that in-house lawyers actively participate in the discussions and can offer creative solutions to them. But it also requires us to be more active in the discussions and to be able to offer creative solutions to them.