Richard Galindo Sanchez – chief legal officer

Team: 64

Natalia Gutiérrez de Larrauri – legal director.

Team: 37

What are the key projects you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

M&A – Sky Airline acquisition: as publicly announced, Abra Group reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Sky Airline, a Chilean carrier. This cross-border M&A has been led by our in-house team in coordination with external counsel in Chile, Brazil, Peru and Colombia. The transaction poses significant regulatory challenges, requiring multiple filings and approvals across jurisdictions. The agreement remains subject to competition authority clearance, definitive documentation and additional closing conditions.

Green River – MRO facility transfer: we closed an exceptionally complex transaction through which Avianca transferred, for a term of up to 20 years, its aircraft heavy maintenance business in Colombia (“MRO Facility”) to a subsidiary of MRO Holdings Inc. The deal required a sophisticated level of negotiation given the asset transfer and the highly regulated nature of the industry. Regulatory challenges spanned over four years from negotiation through signing and closing. Additionally, we negotiated numerous agreements ensuring the Avianca Group airlines will continue to receive heavy maintenance services at the MRO Facility. The transaction involved, among other elements: a transfer of personnel via employer substitution; assignment of real estate leases; and transfer of assignable regulatory permits. This transaction is expected to generate significant long-term strategic benefits for Avianca, including operational and cost efficiencies.

Our team successfully led from the legal standpoint the launch and closing of: an offering of $600m aggregate principal amount of new senior secured notes due 2031; and shortly thereafter, an additional offering of $150m aggregate principal amount of said notes.

Can you describe an instance where your legal advice directly influenced business strategy or commercial objectives?

To name a few, we advised our Procurement team on two major initiatives. First, launching an in-house buy-on-board program for the airline from scratch, which included multiple vendor negotiations to establish the program in record time. Second, negotiating the relocation of our operations at JFK Airport from Terminal 4 to Terminal 6. Our in-house team successfully navigated the challenges arising in both projects, including contract terminations, assessment of material legal risks (e.g., counterparty insolvency), and negotiation with sophisticated counterparts under tight deadlines.

How do you manage situations where legal advice and commercial objectives conflict?

This is ordinary course. First, permanent communication with upper management ensures legal and business objectives remain aligned. Second, we position our legal team as a business partner with full awareness of the financial and commercial impact of our advice. Third, we strive to enable the group’s long-term strategy, finding the right balance between assessing legal risks as gatekeepers while maintaining a pro-business approach that allows the company to move forward with commercial / business initiatives.

What major challenges or risks should in-house legal teams be preparing for over the next twelve months?

The integration of AI into the legal function. We are all leveraging AI to improve efficiency, and it is delivering results. However, the real challenge lies ahead: investing the time to train AI tools to reflect your criteria, precedents and drafting standards. Equally important is establishing robust protocols for AI use, including appropriate safeguards and human review checkpoints to mitigate hallucination risk and ensure quality control of the deliverable will be crucial.