What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

Competing takeover bid of the company & subsequent delisting (24), public bid for IDIADA (24), acquisition of APEM group (25), currently advising on the Middle East crisis affecting one of our business division as a service company to major O&G, utilities and construction in the region.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

I wonder who remembers a period of stability in the last years! From climate, energy, COVID, to inflation, supply chain disruption, more frequent government elections with higher fragmentation, and overall geostrategic challenges and conflicts, not to mention the more internal corporate activities or reorganisations. I am sure most will agree that instability is the new normal and we definitively need to be comfortable “living in the grey” . In that context, some traits are a must have (balance and calm, resilience, flexibility, pragmatism) and for sure, every crisis should be seen as an opportunity (eg. to learn and improve).

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

Several M&A deals with relevant antitrust angles, two dawn raids by Competition authorities with successful outcomes (one as a consortium which ultimately was closed at an early stage, not a frequent outcome at the time), a cyber-attack in the US in a b2c business with public Agencies also successfully resolved from every angle, the company’s IPO back in 2014, building a premier corporate governance model as a listed company over 10 years and then the more recent competing public to private takeover bid (3 competing PEs) and delisting.

How can a general counsel in Spain effectively embed a culture of compliance and ESG accountability across all levels of the organisation, especially in large or multi-jurisdictional groups?

Of course, building a good corporate governance and delegation of authority model is instrumental, but a culture is rooted beyond that.

Our position is indeed quite unique, as it brings us the opportunity to have a high-level & strategic broad vision, whilst collaborating with each or most of the teams worldwide, which provides for the perfect scene to influencing in a meaningful way. [Additionally, not only as trusted advisors are we expected to have an opinion beyond the “strictly legal lenses” but also, by background and training, we are generally comfortable both at “zooming out” or connecting dots, and then at drilling down into a specific matter, too.]

This makes us and our teams a strong voice in obtaining a buy-in (eg. able to explain the rationale of an expected conduct or commitment), contributing to shape a culture and a reputation. (This may apply to Spain or elsewhere, and to any aspect of a company culture)