Team size: Seven

Jurisdictions your role covers: Portugal, Cape Verde, France, UK, Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast

What do you value most in external advisers working alongside your team: sector knowledge, responsiveness, innovation, or something else? 

Level of expertise and responsiveness. The legal challenges associated with Cimpor’s business are numerous and require a timely response. Confidence in the level of expertise, as well as the speed of response, are the most important factors to consider.

How has the role of the legal function evolved within your organisation over recent years, and where do you see it adding the most strategic value today? 

The legal function within the company is becoming increasingly important with each passing day. The confidence that the legal department instils in management and shareholders is clear to see. By way of example, I can mention that management only signs documents if they have been previously approved by the legal department. Documents not validated are not signed at all. As you can imagine, this is a demanding task within a company such as the Cimpor Group.

In what ways does your legal team promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, both within the department and in your external legal partnerships? 

Cimpor’s legal team handles virtually all of the Group’s legal work. Areas such as corporate, environment, competition, labour, Intellectual property, financial, banking, litigation, compliance, energy, data protection, and so on, are dealt with on a daily basis by the legal team. We only use outsourcing when dealing with situations subject to foreign jurisdictions not covered by the Legal Department, and/or when the specific nature of the matter requires a high level of technical expertise. Even in such cases, the involvement of the in-house department is essential to provide guidance, simplify processes wherever possible and make decisions.