Following her appointment as a legal director at the A Coruña based conglomerate Inveravante, Ana Soriano Mayor has contributed to a dramatic growth in the company’s legal department, which has almost doubled in size over a ten-year period. Besides enabling the unit to achieve a better in-house legal coverage, according to Soriano, this expansion has resulted in an intensification in relations between legal and the rest of the business.

‘There is a permanent and direct contact with other professionals such as engineers, architects and human resources’, Soriano says. ‘This is essential to provide full and practical legal advice’. Among her contributions to a plethora of key deals at the company over the last three years, Soriano particularly stands out with her involvement in an acquisition of a company quoted on the Canadian secondary stock exchange market.

As the shares belonged to a number of non-identified owners, it was necessary for Soriano to implement some mercantile procedures to attain them and to inform Canadian authorities about said shares. Other notable transactions over the course of Soriano’s lengthy in-house career include conducting negotiations concerning the acquisition of an oil and gas company with assets located in Colombia, Mexico and South EEUU, as well as supporting the subsequent sale of the company eight years later. Soriano is also known for litigation experience, which involves – among others – working on a notable claim in Spain against the former directors and owners of a quoted company named Fadesa.

Soriano led the defence team of the former CEO and president and majority stockholders of the company. ‘This case contributed to the enhancement of my experience with litigation procedures and my understanding of the importance of a legal in-house lawyer who can communicate issues with external litigation lawyers,‘ she states. In a more recent example of her litigation expertise, Soriano was involved in a claim by Inveravante against a bank to obtain an indemnification stipulated in an SPA. Following contributions by Soriano and her team, the case was successful, and resulted in the receipt of over €30m from the bank following a court order.