How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Given the evolution of the global context and the increasing complexity of commercial transactions, in recent years the legal function within companies has undergone significant growth, adapting to the needs and new expectations of the organisation. Today, in order to confirm its strategic importance, the legal function within a company must adopt a proactive approach that cuts across all functions and is strategic for the organisation, working closely with the CEO, CFO and key business leaders. The main goal is to make sure decisions are made and risks are taken after considering all the variables involved and ensuring that information flows correctly, smoothly, accurately, and completely, so that management can assess potential risks in advance or act quickly to limit any negative impacts on the company. The company’s structure needs to be resilient in the global context, with strong flexibility and adaptability.

The role of the legal department is to contribute to the creation of value for the organisation, including in terms of economic/financial results and risk management, while ensuring regulatory compliance, sharing with the entire structure useful tools and safeguards to address the challenges that arise.

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?

The Group has approved a sustainability plan with short- and medium- to long-term objectives and has set up an ad hoc committee to monitor the related actions/activities. The legal department participates in the Sustainability Committee, which meets periodically. One of the Plan’s main targets is management’s desire to position the Group as a leader in these areas too, anticipating measures to comply with regulatory developments on disclosure requirements in the areas of Environment, Social and Governance.

The legal department is directly responsible for implementing some of these actions, with particular reference to business integrity aspects and ESG policies to be brought to the attention of the board.

In business as usual, the legal department contributes to the development of sustainability within the company by drafting contractual clauses aimed at ensuring compliance with these principles by all company stakeholders.

Finally, the legal department contributes to the design of the process aimed at carrying out due diligence on counterparties, so that both customers and suppliers can be selected taking into account sustainability-related KPIs.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

The new technological challenges inevitably concern the integration of artificial intelligence within processes already implemented in legal functions. In this context, even more so, it will be people and their ability to use, integrate, interpret and interact with the outputs processed by artificial intelligence that will make the difference. Artificial intelligence is destined to become an essential work tool, allowing people to focus their time on activities with greater added value.

We are considering ad hoc training courses specialised for the entire legal department and beyond, not only to deepen knowledge of specific artificial intelligence tools dedicated to the legal world, but also to learn how to query it and formulate questions correctly so that the results of AI can be adapted to the specific needs of the company and/or the specific issue at hand.