Team size: Seven  

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

Without a doubt, the greatest challenge this year has been the defense against the contingencies caused by the national blackout that occurred on February 25th of this year. This has taken up a large part of the team’s efforts so far this year.

Likewise, the environmental processes related to the construction and operation of the 2x500kV Cardones – Polpaico line, the longest in the country, require constant interdisciplinary work, as well as collaboration with sectoral authorities and communities.

On the litigation front, the recent request by the Republic of Chile to annul the arbitration award in ICSID case ARB/21/27 will represent a new challenge for the legal team. Despite all of the above, the team continues to support the management of the company’s recently updated and ambitious growth strategy through 2040.

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

The key is to have a close-knit team willing to face the challenges of the organisation’s processes with a sense of unity of purpose, something like “esprit de corps.” Then, it’s necessary to have a set of multidisciplinary external advisors who understand the business and the problems associated with it from an ecosystemic perspective.

This is the “start” for achieving an optimal level of readiness that allows “accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in seconds” during contingencies or periods of instability.

Finally, process asset management and decision-making with a focus on cost, risk, and performance will maximise value in management and decision-making.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?  

In my spare time, I work pro bono in the defense of the right of ownership of firearms for the legitimate uses contemplated in Chilean law: shooting sports, for example, which has given us one of our country’s few Olympic medals; sustainable hunting to control species harmful to our ecosystem; collecting to protect our historical cultural heritage; and legitimate defense against the wave of crime we have been experiencing in recent years.

I have become involved in this because a lack of understanding and political exploitation by governments surrounding this civil right are common, arbitrarily and sometimes even illegally affecting hundreds of thousands of honest citizens solely due to prejudice or a lack of reliable statistical information..

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?    

First, the current capacity of the internal team to meet the demand for services required from other areas or processes. Then, the specialty. Although the team we lead includes professionals with specific practice areas, there are instances where even greater depth or support in human hours is required, which motivates us to seek external support.

Then, there are cases where the complexity or the financial or reputational impact on the company make it advisable for higher governance bodies in the organisation, such as management, the board of directors, or other stakeholders, to seek external input.

We do not have objective parameters to evaluate performance; however, the fact that the required inputs are delivered within the requested timeframes, as well as the inclusion of the elements defined in the strategies, determine whether external legal service providers meet expectations or not.

Looking forward, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape over the next five to ten years that companies should prepare for?  

I could mention many, however, environmental aspects will be an issue that infrastructure companies must focus on more in the coming years.

Furthermore, with the entry into force in our country of the so-called Economic Crimes and Environmental Crimes Act, the catalog of crimes that a regulated infrastructure company can commit is tremendous, so support and assistance in compliance monitoring is a key preventive measure to avoid contingencies of this nature.

Finally, the demand for the use of new tools, such as artificial intelligence, will pose a challenge to human teams that are not normally accustomed to using technologies for their work.