LATAM countries your role covers: Colombia, México, Chile, Perú, Panamá and Brazil and also, the US

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

As head of legal of Secuoya Studios, Secuoya Content Group’s audiovisual content production and distribution area, I have led two international fiction blockbusters for major clients in Latin American and US Hispanic countries.

Firstly, the production of `ZORRO´ series reboot. The production and financing of the series involved the retention of the IP by Secuoya Studios and the pre-sale of rights through complex transactions with Amazon Prime Video for the distribution of the series in all territories of Latin America, US, Spain, Portugal, and Andorra, as well as the negotiation with the international distributor Mediawan Rights for its distribution in the rest of the world. The ten episodes of the first season have been completed and will be broadcast in the first half of 2024.

Secondly, last year I led the production and commercialisation of the series, `MONTECRISTO´, an updated adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic “The Count of Montecristo”. This series was sold to VIX+, the leading streaming platform in Latin America, owned by TelevisaUnivision, and has been broadcasted in all Latin American countries, along with US.

In addition, in the last year, as head of the studio’s legal department, I led five other feature film projects. Together with my team, we supervised all the contracting derived from the production and international exploitation of the films, negotiating with the main platforms, linear television channels and distributors in Europe and Latin America. We did the same over 15 unscripted projects, divided between documentary series and television programs that are broadcasted in different European and Latin American TV Channels, such as “Españoles en el Mundo” for the Spanish National Television and its international channel or “Aquí se baila” for Canal 13 in Chile.

How do you adapt your legal counselling to align with the diverse business practices and customs of various LATAM countries?

I think it is very important to consider the different peculiarities and complexities for the negotiation of multi-territory projects, as well as in some cases, the cultural elements of each country. In the area of international content production in countries such as Colombia, Chile, or Mexico, we lead the operations internally, although we seek support from local partners who can advise us on technical issues related to each country’s legislation. At this point, in my opinion it is important that the in-house lawyer has a great and deep knowledge of the international industry to observe if the negotiations and agreements reached are within the market standards.

What are your organisations plans in the LATAM region over the next 12 months and how will your legal expertise help to achieve these plans?

The Latin American region is positioned as the main region for my company’s operations in the short and medium term. The commercialisation of the Spanish language in all the countries of this region and international co-productions with the main Latin American countries is a trend in the audiovisual industry.

Due to the experience developed by Secuoya Studios in all the projects we produced this year, in which I had the opportunity to lead from the legal side, we have been positioned as a reference partner for major studios and platforms in Latin American and the Spanish-speaking market in the US.