Key team members:

Maria João Faísca, Legal Director

Filipa Vaz

Maria Ana Silveira

Sílvia Neto Ferreira

Team size: Four

Major legal advisors : PLMJ, Morais Leitão, IDLEI

Jurisdictions your role covers: Portugal

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The Impresa Group’s legal team carries out all types of work necessary to ensure the regular activity of the Group’s various companies. From managing the Group’s corporate life to supporting journalists, the scope of the intervention of the Impresa Group’s legal department is vast. It is not just about monitoring the regular activity of a group of companies, but above all, providing support to media companies – with the pace and volume of issues that this entails.

Examples of this scope include the efforts to ensure the success of the most recent bond loan, the support of the editorial team and journalists in providing the necessary advice to carry out their work with autonomy, impartiality and rigor, the ongoing work with the Regulator, the response to complaints and requests for information from viewers, readers and consumers, the registration of new television channels (most recently, SIC Novelas), the negotiation of contracts that guarantee that the television channels have content, including all concerns arising from production and the underlying intellectual property rights, and the intermediation with entities representing the sector.

In addition, the Impresa Group is constantly updating, developing and improving technology, so that information systems, artificial intelligence and the development of new models and platforms deserve special attention from the legal department.

Finally, but without this meaning that the matters stop here, the team has been constantly committed to protecting intellectual property rights, with many due diligences carried out by multidisciplinary teams, as well as a strong concern for compliance with applicable legislation regarding personal data.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

Given the volume of work, managing and distributing the work among external lawyers becomes challenging, but necessary. As such, the decision to use such external support is justified mainly by a rationale that results from considering some factors: (i) team availability; (ii) urgency of the matter; (iii) efficiency of response. There are matters that, because they require judicial monitoring, are outsourced. For other matters, it is understood that the in-house legal team, due to its proximity, understanding and ease of efficiency and, consequently, rapid response, will be the most suitable.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company? Can you share an example of a recent legal-led initiative that had a significant impact?

There is an increasing effort and concern for the legal department to be involved in projects from the very beginning. This can happen both in defining programming – and ensuring compliance with the rules applicable to it, in particular the Law on Television and Audiovisual Services on Demand – and when establishing partnerships, for example, with distributors and service providers.

The involvement of the legal team from the outset ensures greater project viability and a lower degree of frustration (or so I would like to believe!).

What are some of the biggest legal or regulatory challenges currently facing your industry, and how is your team preparing to address them?

There are several issues in the media industry that are constantly under turmoil and that can cause difficulties with major repercussions for television services and the press. Without a doubt, the sources of financing for industry companies are a worrying issue because they require difficult management and a clear definition of strictly prohibited paths.

On the other hand, it is essential to guarantee impartial information and the integrity of journalistic work. The Regulator has been paying attention to some issues that will represent real challenges for all agents in the media market. The legal department of the Impresa Group intends to develop work that ensures compliance with the law, without this implying the end of innovation and creativity in the activity. For this reason, it will have to play the role of, more than a fatalistic judge, a co-creator of solutions that allow progress without bending the law.