Team size:  Two

What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

One of the most important projects in which we have been involved the last year is related with the organisation´s growth through. Across our region there´s has been good opportunities for the business in M&A and with opening new markets for the company. All these opportunities and challenges has being duly supported by the legal department.

Another important projects in which the legal department has been working the last year it is related with new technologies and with Legal operations. Since LATAM has several countries and the internal resources are limited, it is crucial to implement nor only processes but also technology into the legal function such as CLM´s, regional policies and so on. This is a work on going but already has bring a lot of efficiencies to the region and the business.

Finally, we have several important cases across the region. Given the industry of the organisation, I would say that the most important ones are those related to product liability. Even though the rate of these kind of cases is low, we do have face them in a very successful way with strong technical or scientific evidence and legal arguments.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience? 

Without a doubt, the most important thing for an in-house legal department is to be very close to the business areas, really understand how the business works, to be aligned with the organisation´s KPI’s and priorities and, in this way, we will be able to give appropriate advice with a clear focus on a risks and opportunities basis for the business and the stakeholders. In a period of instability or crisis, if the approach to the business is as indicated above, how legal matters are handled in one period or another should not vary.

Given the current geopolitical shifts and growing uncertainties around international free trade, has your company’s risk profile evolved, and are you taking measures to address these challenges?

Of course. This is something that affects all industries, companies, countries, etc so as an organisation it is mandatory to address these changes and challenges. I think this kind of challenges also has bring opportunities to the companies to include new views on the risk´s assessments work, including, more strongly, the geopolitical ones, anticipating decisions or being more conservative in another’s. Here it is crucial to have several views on the table to move forward with good decisions (commercial, financial, legal, etc).

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?  Across Latin American we are facing strong political changes that have led to strong polarisations, which impacts both the economy of the countries, the investment that we attract as a region and, therefore, also in the regulations. In several countries we have seen reforms already implemented and projects in all types of matters, such as labor, environmental, antitrust, data protection, etc., which forces us as in-house lawyers to work preventively, anticipate and prepare the business for the changes that are coming and push the cultural changes that this entails.