About

Upon starting his in-house legal career as a litigation counsel at Siemens México, Eduardo Ramos Valdivia was presented with the challenging task of participating in the transformation of the legal department. Due to a turnaround in the company’s compliance culture at the time, the department was undergoing a complete change in staff. ‘I had to focus on changing the image of a litigator from that of a mere problem solver, or even a “problem maker”, to a more preventive role, with a strong focus on claims management’. Ramos states. ‘It’s amazing to see how colleagues, who once looked at me and thought “here comes the trouble maker”, now approach me for advice on how to handle a claim in a project in the best manner to avoid disputes. This makes you feel truly part of the business and you know for sure that you are meeting the expectations of the company’. After spending five years in this position, Ramos received the opportunity to combine his dispute resolution role with that of a commercial counsel supporting two distinct divisions (Digital Factory & Process Industries and Drives). During his over-six-year tenure at Siemens Ramos has made a good impression with his conduct on various important cases such as a recent multibillion dollar arbitration involving a large state-owned company that was also an important client at the time. ‘The situation implied that we need to balance the expectations of the business with maintaining a good business relation with our customer. Furthermore, we had a consortium partner that was also part of the dispute, so any agreement had to meet the expectations of all parties’, Ramos explains. ‘Eventually and after over a year of intense negotiations we came with a settlement option that satisfied all three sides. For me the lesson learned was that one of the most relevant roles for any in-house counsel is to find solutions that allows the business to keep going and not only to be right from the from the legal stand point’. Other recent achievements from the last three years include Ramos’ defence of a contract awarded by a state-owned utility company with a value of US$45m, as well as his implementation of terms and conditions on the platform for Internet of Things (IoT) solutions which is one of the cornerstones of Siemens’ digitalisation strategy.