The dramatic collapse of two established major European airlines demonstrated the volatility facing many sections of the industry, with British-headquartered Monarch Airlines and German-based Air Berlin becoming the latest casualties of turbulence in the market. Continue reading “Wings of Change”
GC: Can you tell me a little bit about your background, and how you came to be working in-house, in the banking sector in Singapore?
Stanley Park (SP): : I went to school in the US, and then spent a couple of years after graduating in the federal courts as a law clerk – a year in New York at the trial court and a year in Providence, Long Island at the appeal court level.
Then I spent about nine years working in two law firms in New York City. I was at Cleary Gottlieb for four years and five years at Coudert Brothers, doing mostly corporate and corporate finance.
In 2001, I moved to Tokyo to join Salomon Smith Barney, which is now part of Citigroup.
I spent about six and a half years in Tokyo – three at Solomon and about three and a half at UBS, and after that I went to Hong Kong to work as chief compliance officer for a hedge fund. But that was 2008, the year of the Lehman crisis, so the hedge fund didn’t last very long. So I went back to Tokyo, to join Barclays Global Investors, and I was general counsel until they were acquired by BlackRock. That happened shortly after I arrived there, so my tenure there was not very long either.
Then I came to Singapore, to join Daiwa Capital Markets, a Japanese broker-dealer. I stayed for three years, and then had the opportunity to join Scotia about four and a half years ago.
GC: Was it always a desire of yours to do so much travelling?
SP: My father is Korean and my mother Japanese, and I was born in the US. I had grown up living in different parts of the world – I lived in the US until I was 12, then I moved to Germany for a year, then we moved to Beirut, Lebanon. I didn’t like it very much, so after a year I went to Japan to work as a waiter – I just quit high school and went to work as a waiter in my uncle’s Greek restaurant. After a year, I came back to Beirut to continue with high school, then went back to Germany for my junior year, and then my family moved from Beirut to Vienna, so I re-joined them in Vienna for my last year of high school, before coming back to the US for university. So it is natural to live in different countries.
GC: What are the main challenges of operating in the banking sector in Singapore?
SP: Singapore is a large financial centre, but it’s still not one of the largest financial centres, so I think the challenge for Singapore is to establish itself as one of the leading financial centres in the world. Most people would admit it’s not quite in the same league as New York or London, and so that is its aspiration – to rise to the level of the true financial centres.
A lot of what gives London and New York their financial heft is the strength or the size of the economies that support them. So it’s the US economy that supports New York as a financial centre, and it’s the European economy, the EU, that really supports London as a financial centre. The economic strength of South East Asia, although considerable, is still somewhat less than North America, or the US and the EU. But it’s catching up.
GC: What is the regulatory environment like in Singapore for the financial sector?
SP: I think it’s solid, which is one of the reasons why Singapore has been as successful as it has. That’s down to a couple of things: one, the reputation of the financial regulators here in Singapore, and two, their reasonableness in dealing with financial institutions and financial problems. I think they’ve been good at maintaining a good balance in their approach to all of the major issues and problems that the financial industry faces.
GC: Has there been much regulatory change in recent years?
SP: There’s been a lot of change, I think especially after the Lehman crisis. The financial regulatory landscape has changed considerably from the G20 Summit in 2009 until the present day. Regulators have been increasingly seen to maintain good control over the financial industry, and so the regulatory framework has become stricter in various ways. Dodd-Frank, MiFID and other similar laws or regulations are some examples of the increased scrutiny that has been placed on the financial industry.
GC: Practically and culturally, what are the main challenges or oppotunities for you as a GC in Singapore?
SP: I think Singapore provides GCs with a good opportunity to gain international exposure and experience, and provides a good environment to develop their skillset and competence. That’s for various reasons: the solid regulatory framework, the international energy that comes together in the city, the respect that Singapore commands in the region and even globally, the reliability of the Singapore courts and law, the integrity of the court system and the institutions. All of this makes a good environment for GCs to thrive.
GC: Thinking about your own career, are there any highlights or achievements that you’re most proud of, over the years?
SP: I’m glad that I had substantial exposure in four major financial centres – New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. I also I think I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to work in different types of financial institutions – investment banks, a commercial bank, a hedge fund and an asset manager. I’ve also worked in different roles on the legal side – I’ve been a compliance officer, I’ve been in-house counsel as well as a law firm lawyer. So I’m really grateful for the opportunity to have had these different experiences and perspectives within the finance industry. That has made me a more well-rounded in-house counsel.
GC: What does your legal team look like?
SP: We currently have a lean, but highly effective legal department. Currently we have three lawyers – one who is responsible for corporate legal and secretarial, another responsible for government relations, and another for litigation respectively.
GC: On the flip side, how about challenges? Have there been any particular challenging times in your in-house career?
SP: I think that my years at law firms in New York, although they were very fruitful and helpful in developing some of the basic skills of lawyering, were very demanding. I’m glad to have made it. But you know what they say – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It didn’t kill me, and made me stronger!
The financial crisis, the Lehman shock, was a particularly turbulent and challenging time in my career. I have moved around quite a bit due, in large part, to some of the adjustments that had to be made as a result of the financial crisis – moving from Hong Kong back to Tokyo, and then from Tokyo to Singapore, a lot of that really had roots in the financial crisis.
GC: What did it feel like, in the midst of the financial crisis? Was there real anxiety among the people around you at that time?
SP: Sure. The anxiety was mostly as a result of uncertainty. During the very peak of the crisis, we would leave work on a Friday afternoon not knowing what the financial industry would look like the following Monday. It was no exaggeration. Major changes occurred over the weekend – for example, Merrill Lynch disappeared over the weekend and was merged with Bank of America, Bear Stearns disappeared over the weekend and was purchased by JPMorgan. Lehman disappeared over the weekend as well. Every weekend, we’d wonder what sort of backroom deals were being done at the Federal Reserve, and who would buy whom, or who would be left, or who would fall apart Monday morning. Literally, changes had occurred on two or three weekends that just rocked and shook the entire industry. It was really quite a fearful time.
There was a time when Citibank was trading at less than a dollar per share. People were wondering whether we would go broke. No one could imagine a bank like Citibank going bankrupt, at least in New York 10 years ago, but in the end, the government decided to step in and save them. But over that weekend, we didn’t know if they would. They didn’t step in and save Leman, and the way they saved Merrills was to have Bank of America buy them. Who knew what would happen next? So it was really a frantic time, mostly due to the anxiety.
GC: What are your day-to-day challenges?
SP: One of the biggest is prioritisation. A general counsel needs to prioritise the limited resources he or she has in terms of time, in terms of effort or energy, and in terms of team members, especially in this era of cost-consciousness. The amount of work or tasks at hand will always outstrip the amount of resource available, so one of the biggest and most important challenges as a GC is to prioritise among different tasks, or among different businesses, among different countries, and among different matters.
Second, a GC has to make good judgements. More than anything else, a GC has to exercise good judgement in matters small and large. Every day, every hour, we are making judgements about all sorts of things we are involved in. It could be about things as small as who to include in an email or invite to a meeting, to things as large as whether or not your bank or your company should actually start a law suit, approve a particular product, or close down an office, close down a new business or start a new business – and everything in between.
A third challenge is personal relationships. A lot of our success really depends, if not entirely then in large part, on the quality of the relationships that we have with the people we work with, both within the company that we’re working in or outside the company. We have all sorts of relationships and, at the GC level, our effectiveness depends not so much on how smart we are or how brilliant we are at writing a contract or spotting issues, it depends more on the quality of the relationships that we have. How much they trust us, how well we communicate with them, how well they communicate with us. How well we relate to outside counsel and other vendors and service providers from outside. And how effective we are at engaging with them, negotiating with them, and working with them – getting them to cooperate with us.
And then the fourth important challenge is management: managing the team, managing the businesses, managing the senior management, managing expectations, managing outside counsel.
GC: What challenges are coming over the horizon for GCs over the next year or two?
SP: I think one challenge that almost every GC faces, is how to do more with less. Increasingly, GCs are being asked to cut their budgets, to reduce their headcount or at least not to grow their headcount, but yet take time to take on a greater and greater role within their companies. The challenge is how to take on greater responsibility, perform at a higher level, and contribute more to the company with fewer resources, or at least with resources that are limited. I think part of that may be achieved through technology, but otherwise it’s left to the creativity or ingenuity of the GCs themselves to figure out how to do more with less.
The second challenge coming over the horizon is how to adapt to, and use for our own benefit and advantage, new technology. Sometimes it’s called RegTech, sometimes people refer to AI, sometimes people refer to big data. However you want refer to it, technological development is coming in and nothing is going to stop it, so the challenge for GCs is to, first, learn and understand about technology and be comfortable with it and second, to really integrate technology meaningfully into their own practices.
GC: Are you able to give any examples of how technology can help GCs?
SP: I honestly haven’t seen many clear examples of practical application of advanced technology. I’ve heard a lot of talk about it – nearly every conference I go to, every roundtable, discussion or seminar broaches, in some shape or form, RegTech, or tech, or AI, or big data.
What I’m looking for in the future is applications that will help me deal on two fronts. First, is an understanding of the black letter law in each relevant jurisdiction. I have started seeing some law firms produce websites or digital libraries of relevant legal guidance in particular subject matters. For example, aosphere (Allen & Overy) has a website that outlines all of the antecedent advice for many countries in the world, including those of APAC, with respect to cross-border data transfers. All sorts of questions. You can go online and research them. I would hope that would increase even more. That’s one way in which technology can be helpful: in providing a practically useful compendium of relevant legal guidance across different subjects, and to index it and make it user friendly.
The second would be useful help in drafting and negotiating legal documentation. I hear talk about it, especially for simpler agreements like NDAs, but I haven’t seen a whole lot yet.
People throw questions at me all the time and so I want to have some repository, some database – whether you want to call it AI or big data or whatever – that I can go to, and even ask the question orally, like Siri. ‘Please tell me whether or not I need client consent to disclose client confidential information in Hong Kong’, and it will fill out the answer. We’re definitely not there yet, but that would be in the future.
GC: Would that place law firms at the centre of that as opposed to legal tech companies?
SP: Yes.
GC: Are there any upcoming developments in the financial sector or the banking world that you’re looking out for?
SP: I think how to combine prudent risk management and risk assessment imperatives with the increasingly competitive landscape for financial institutions in Asia as well as globally, is going to be the key to success for any financial institution. The financial institution that can integrate commercial imperatives with risk management imperatives is going to be the institution that succeeds. How to define each of those imperatives is going to be important, as well as how to reconcile the imperatives, so those are the two key ingredients of successful integration. One is a clear definition of what your commercial imperatives and your risk management imperatives are, and then reasonable and creative thinking about how the two can be reconciled. It’s much easier said than done, and much easier to speak conceptually about it rather than practically but, at least conceptually, that is what needs to be done.
Banks the world around are subject to a level of supervision and regulatory scrutiny over and above almost any other entity. In certain parts of Asia, and in an increasing number of Western countries, banks have even more to contend with. In Southeast Asia, where Muslims number 240 million and over 40% of the population, the demand for financial products that adhere to Sharia legal principles is similarly high.
Ernst & Young estimates that Islamic banking assets grew at an annual rate of 17.6% between 2009 and 2013, and further estimates that it will continue to grow by an average of 19.7% up to 2018. A report by Thomson Reuters in 2017 projected global Islamic financial assets to be worth $3.2tn by 2020.
‘A credible Islamic finance offering is becoming one of the key differentiators among banks in Southeast Asia,’ explains Lee Chin Tok, group general counsel at CIMB, Malaysia’s second largest bank.
In 2015, 65% of the global assets were held by those based in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Malaysia. Another report by the Islamic Financial Services Board, an international body based in Malaysia, which is responsible for setting standards and giving guidance on Islamic banking and finance, reported that the total value of Islamic financial assets had grown from $1.4tn to $1.5tn in 2017.
In many countries, Malaysia and Indonesia included, the demand for Islamic financial products has carved out an increasingly prominent role for Sharia within the traditional legal system. Naturally, this is felt by legal teams operating within these jurisdictions and this industry, where Islamic finance isn’t just a public relations issue, but a regulatory one, too.
‘We have a dedicated Islamic Legal team that covers Islamic finance. However, I also encourage my other legal colleagues who are not on that team to also have familiarity with the Islamic principles that we use for our Islamic products,’ explains Lee.
‘Although we do have various specialist legal teams for a particular area of law or particular area of business and notwithstanding the fact that we have a dedicated Islamic legal team, the rest of our legal colleagues are encouraged to learn about Islamic finance because it is an important component for our business.’
Indonesia has begun to solidify the boundary between Sharia and non-Sharia offerings. The country introduced the so-called ‘New Insurance Law’ in 2014, which is intended to be the definitive source on insurance law in the country. One of the requirements it introduced was that all Sharia business units within conventional insurance companies must be segregated.
‘In terms of regulation, insurers have to be ready to spin off their Sharia units, as required by the 2014 insurance law. We have to submit the blueprint for the spinoffs by 2020, and they have to be spunoff by 2024, so this is becoming a hot topic of conversation everywhere in the industry. We have to be able to ensure that the process is running smoothly and successfully,’explains Randi Ikhlas Sardoni, head of legal at Panin Dai-ichi Life.
‘Now, the issues relate to how to ensure that when the spinoff company is independent from the holding company or the conventional company, it will be competing with the other Sharia companies in Indonesia, and not with the conventional company.’
‘There will also be a lot of discussion about how to train the financial advisers. Currently, we have financial advisers that hold two licences, a conventional licence and a Sharia licence. But after the regulation takes effect, they have to advise just the conventional or just the Sharia businesses. So these will be several things that have to be taken care of and discussed properly.’
According to Thomson Reuter’s Islamic Finance Development Indicator, Malaysia is the best-developed Islamic Finance market by a significant margin, scoring 128.87, ahead of the next-best, Bahrain, by over 45 points.
The regulation of Islamic finance in Malaysia is sophisticated. Islamic financial products and services are regulated by the Central Bank of Malaysia, which regulates specifically for the Islamic finance market in the hopes of establishing Malaysia as a global hub. Islamic finance is specifically provided for in the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009, which states that ‘the financial system in Malaysia shall consist of the conventional financial system and Islamic financial system’.
‘The legal infrastructure in Malaysia, in the context of Islamic products, is generally quite well-established by the regulatory authorities. On the banking side, we have the Malaysian Central Bank (Bank Negara Malaysia) and on the capital markets side, we have our Securities Commission’ says Lee.
‘What we are looking at, for the next stage, is not simply the administration of disputes, but it’s going a step forward and moving to dispute avoidance.
For example, what we have done now, which did not really exist in Malaysia previously, we realised a few years ago that there is not really any standard form contract for construction deals. You would have a vast range of contracts between companies and this of course caused a lot of difficulties for everyone, because everybody needs to go through every single contract in full for every case. We came up with our own standard form contract and, at least when we launched it in August last year, we were the only institution to do that. These contracts have now been downloaded thousands of times from Malaysia and from abroad.
What we also offer to parties looking at finding their contract, is certain modules, within those standard form contracts. They can put everything together online, where they can jointly see the draft contract, and then track all the changes automatically on our website. The moment they’re done, they click a button and they can just download it, and then it’s the finalised product.
One of the leading principles was really to balance each party’s opportunities and benefits, so that you would not be disadvantaged in the contract, and the contractor would not be disadvantaged in construction contracts. It’s very balanced, and it’s also made in a way that whenever a problem arises, it has to be addressed right away. Remember, this is the pre-dispute stage: here we are talking about problems that arise before the dispute takes place. With that in mind, if you address problems early on, you will be able to hopefully resolve them and you don’t need to go all the way to arbitration.
We want to be in a place where if you have a dispute, if we cannot help you avoid it, you can then come to us to help you resolve it.’
‘Both Bank Negara Malaysia and the Securities Commission have their respective Shariah Advisory Councils to, amongst others, deliberate, provide guidance and issue rulings on all Sharia matters, including products and structures and and therefore. helps the banks to structure their products in a Sharia compliant manner.’
The Malaysian Central Bank, referred to as BNM, is empowered by statute to legitimise the duality of both Malaysia’s conventional and Islamic financial systems. It has a dedicated Shariah Advisory Council, to which all questions of Islamic finance under Sharia should be referred.
The Securities Commission is similarly mandated to regulate the Malaysian capital market, which includes the Islamic capital market. According to the Securities Commission, the Islamic capital market in Malaysia accounts for over 60% of the total capital market. To bolster this, the Securities Commission set up a dedicated Islamic Capital Market Department, mandated to carry out research and development aimed at strengthening the long-term prospects of the Islamic capital market in the future.
Malaysia’s dual judicial system is supported by two separate courts: the Civil Court and the Sharia Court. Unlike the Civil Court, the Sharia Court only has jurisdiction over those professing the religion of Islam, and on select areas of Islamic law, including family law and the administration of trusts. Islamic banking and finance, while subject to Sharia law, are dealt with in the civil court system.
‘Here in Malaysia, we have the regular courts and then we have the Sharia courts. If you’re a muslim and you want to get a divorce, you cannot go to the regular courts – you go to the Sharia courts. Sharia is very important, but where we don’t see it play a big role, is in business disputes,’ explains Harald Sippel, head of legal services at the Asian International Arbitration Centre.
‘For Islamic products which are being offered to bank customers in Malaysia, they come under the jurisdiction of the Malaysian civil courts, and not the Islamic courts. That helps in terms of making sure, in terms of the treatment of Islamic products, that they also follow the same principles in terms of enforceability,’ adds Lee.
‘That also helps to keep the wider public informed of any issues about Islamic products, as the cases are also litigated in the civil court system.’
This position has been affirmed on the basis that disputes over Islamic financial transactions still involve the application of civil law statutes; that Sharia courts hold few powers in terms of enforcement and remedies to function as a banking court; and that the Sharia courts are independent state courts with their own lines of appeal – making them a confusing source of authority on financial matters.
Despite this, the line between Sharia and civil law when talking about issues of Islamic finance, is not as well defined as it appears. Even in the civil courts, adjudicating on Islamic finance requires an application of both Sharia and the civil law. That Islamic finance cases are filed in the civil court at every level has muddied the procedural waters and has often left judges who are not sufficiently trained in Sharia law in the position of presiding over Islamic finance cases. Worse still, Islamic finance cases are often brought before lower courts who are not empowered to grant the kinds of remedies that would normally be appropriate in cases of non-compliance, leading to costly delays in proceedings.
The obvious answer may be to establish a dedicated court to hear matters of Islamic finance, but Malaysia’s legal architecture makes this difficult. In Malaysia, the courts are set up based on territoriality, with the intent of providing easy access to the legal system for citizens. This focus on geography would not lend itself to the establishment of dedicated sharia courts, where the volume of Islamic finance cases will vary greatly depending on location.
A dedicated court, the Muamalah Court, was established in 2009 and is designated to hear all cases on Islamic finance. While viewed as a positive step, the scope of the Muamalah Court is limited and it still defers to Malaysia’s other commercial courts for execution proceedings. Further, appeals from the Muamalah Court follow the same path as appeals from other lower level courts, meaning that cases appealed will eventually end up before a panel of non-Sharia experts, despite their origins in the specialised Muamalah Court. Additionally, this court is resident only in Kuala Lumpur, meaning it can only hear cases filed in Kuala Lumpur. This renders citizens based in regional Malaysia without easy access.
While various figures within the Malaysian legal system have called for the establishment of the Mualamah Court at state level, citizens outside Kuala Lumpur have no option but to take the traditional route to justice. That means applying to non-expert commercial civil courts to rule on matters of Islamic finance, or seeking alternative methods of dispute resolution altogether.
Malaysia is one part of a tightly knit collection of economies in Southeast Asia. Despite their geographic proximity and co-dependence, these countries are diverse culturally and, as a result, legally. Whereas a small niche of Sharia law sits alongside the civil code in Malaysia, some of its would-be trading partners see Sharia take a much more dominant part of their legal code. This, Sippel explains, can be a barrier to trade.
‘Now, there is a quickly growing volume of deals for halal product. That’s where we see a huge market for growth because these halal products are being traded more and more on an international scope. But the moment you have a second country involved, you will automatically have more disputes because of the cultural differences,’ explains Sippel.
‘When it comes to halal products, for a Malaysian company to do business with an Indonesian entity, for instance, they would be reluctant to agree to be subject to anything other than Sharia experts, which is where the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) would come in.’
Malaysia has embraced the value of alternative dispute resolution methods, which has allowed entities such as the AIAC to thrive. Formerly the Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration, it looks to leverage its dominance in Malaysia and establish itself as Southeast Asia’s premier arbitration hub.
‘We were established 40 years ago, in 1978. What we don’t have to a great extent yet are the international arbitrations. Of around 150 arbitrations a year in total, 80% of that is domestic,’ says Sippel.
‘It’s something that we are trying to expand, because the AIAC is the only, or is one of the only arbitral institutions in the world that has Sharia-compliant arbitration rules.’
In 2012, the AIAC introduced a new set of arbitration rules for Islamic arbitration. Called the i-Abritration rules, they are the first adapted ruleset to cater exclusively to disputes arising from commercial contracts containing issues of Sharia law.
The rules were a necessary introduction for global legal frameworks, and form a big part of the AIAC’s vision to become the go-to arbitration service in Asia. The hope for the AIAC is that it can offer another avenue to international parties looking to do business in Malaysia or wider-Asia, specifically with regards to Islamic finance.
‘Innovation requires an experimental mindset.
Some of the things we learned from that
inform what we’re doing next,’
– Denise Morrison, former CEO of Campbell Soup Company.
Historically, the words ‘innovation’ and ‘lawyer’ have not sat well together. Ask a cross section of legal service users to describe a typical lawyer or law firm, they’d just as likely conjure up the image of a Dickensian solicitor toiling away by candlelight as they are some brash, quick-witted Hollywood type from Suits whose only claim to innovation would be in how often they can implausibly avoid disbarment. Sure, these are unfair stereotypes, but there must be a reason why they persist.
If their marketing efforts are anything to go by, many major law firms want to shake the idea that lawyers can’t innovate. Indeed, during The Legal 500’s Asia Pacific research process, many partners were keen to stress how their provision of legal services is ‘cutting edge’, ‘disruptive’, or ‘novel’. These claims don’t always stand up to scrutiny, or at least it is hard to really describe the innovations spoken of in the glowing terms seen in submissions and press releases. So, just how do you make supposed legal service innovations – for want of a better word – sexy?
Designed to do exactly what they say on the tin, ‘innovation hubs’ have been all the rage in Europe and the United States for a number of years, and firms seem to have great faith in their ability to solve the most vexing of client problems, either now or in the future. In fact, some firms are so confident in their ability to act as genuine game changers that hubs are starting to spring up across the Asia Pacific region.
In March, Allens and UNSW Sydney officially launched the Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation. Led by UNSW academics, the hub aims to ‘investigate wide-ranging issues, from data as a source of market power, to the concept of legal responsibility for artificial intelligence, to the legal status of synthetic life forms, to legal models governing cooperatives’ use of digital platforms.’
At the time of its launch, Anna Collyer, partner and head of innovation at Allens, said the new hub will play a leadership role in navigating the disruption in Australia’s legal system.
‘The unprecedented pace and scale of technological advancement has meant that our legal system is in many cases no longer fit for purpose,’ she said in a statement.
‘This not only runs the risk of legal uncertainty, but also of hampering Australian businesses’ ability to harness innovation. It is essential that the law strikes the right balance between limiting risk and promoting innovation during this period of disruption.’
Two months later, in May, Clifford Chance announced the launch of its Best Delivery and Innovation Hub. Based in Singapore, the hub is Clifford Chance’s first outside Europe and the US, and will act as the Magic Circle firm’s regional centre to ‘drive more innovative, efficient, effective and robust client service delivery’, as well as ‘identify, develop, test and roll out new legal technology solutions across Asia Pacific and beyond’.
Geraint Hughes, the firm’s regional managing partner, said the hub ‘not only marks our ongoing commitment to Singapore as a global legal hub, but also reflects the rapidly evolving changes affecting our clients and our profession. We aim to combine market leading technology and project management expertise, with the highest quality legal input, to deliver the best service for our clients today and into the future.’
Meanwhile, the likes of Clyde & Co, Baker McKenzie, Linklaters and Rajah & Tann are members of the Singapore government-backed Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP), a resource established to facilitate lawyers, entrepreneurs, and regulators collaborating on legal technology and innovation projects. As a result of the initiative, Rajah & Tann launched a separate company – Rajah & Tann Technologies – earlier this year, which allows other professionals, such as technologists, as well as policy and cybersecurity experts, to become partners in the business and provide cybersecurity, regulatory and compliance advice to the firm’s clients.
And then there is Kennedys, which is taking its innovation hub global. Launched in the summer of 2017, Kennedys’ Ideas Lab is a platform through which any member of the firm can ‘come forward with innovative ideas about how to create future products’. The only stipulation is that all ideas must align with the firm’s core principle of helping clients use lawyers less. It’s a bold proposition that seems counterintuitive, but Richard West, partner and head of innovations, insists the principle is in the best interests of both the firm and its clients.
‘We have long viewed technology as an enabler of change that can transform legal services for the benefit of both the industry and our clients,’ he says.
‘It’s important to understand that our innovations are aimed at helping clients only to use lawyers when they really need one. This is something we are incredibly strong advocates of.’
It would be easy to assume that helping corporates avoid law firms would reduce the interaction between lawyers and clients, ultimately damaging the hard-built relationships between in-house and external legal teams. West, however, dispels this notion and points to the firm’s development of its virtual lawyer, KLAiM, as an example of how a two-way innovation process between firm and client can work.
‘We have rolled [KLAiM] into some of the UK’s largest insurers and we’re developing it in Hong Kong, Sydney and the East Coast of the US,’ he says.
‘That has involved more, not less, engagement, which has, in turn, built deeper, stronger relationships rather than loosening ties with our clients. We become, in many ways, a 21st-century trusted adviser.’
According to West, this approach has realised instant savings on client costs.
‘They save millions of pounds a year in avoiding the need to instruct a lawyer when they may have otherwise been persuaded to use one. By empowering clients to deal with claims more efficiently and reducing the cost of these claims, we build additional relationships and win new clients because we can demonstrate that we have proven innovations and are trusted advisers – growing market share, while supporting our clients’ business along the way.’
Despite their lofty goals, there is some healthy scepticism surrounding innovation hubs: are they all they’re cracked up to be, or just a clever marketing gimmick designed by law firms to appear more forward-thinking and client-centric?
‘I understand the cynicism that has grown around such hubs, when many of them simply produce ideas intended to benefit the lawyers and not their clients,’ says West.
‘Some improve operational efficiency within their parent organisations. I don’t consider that to be innovative.’
For West, lawyers have to evolve, become more innovative, but also understand what innovation really means.
‘Too many try to define innovation as something that should be internally focused on their own processes to protect their own margins. My view is that innovation should be aimed at clients, and creating solutions for them which either saves them money or makes them money.’
Kennedys’ latest gambit has been the launch of a firm-wide innovation competition, in which staff can pitch their own legal start-ups for development and ‘become their own CEOs’. The Ideas Lab received over 100 proposals, which the firm’s research and development board has narrowed down to six to be turned into prototypes. Their creators range from a senior partner in London to a paralegal in New Jersey, and members of the firm’s Melbourne and Hong Kong offices are also shortlisted.
Just as Denise Morrison muses, lawyers wishing to innovate would be wise to adopt an experimental mindset, even if that experimentation costs them in the short term. The economies of scale enjoyed by global law firms mean that they are best placed to invest in the research and development of future legal products. And with Asia Pacific’s growing reputation as the place to go for tech talent, it makes sense that firms are investing in the region.
The proof, however, is in the pudding. Through their external PR, firms can shout until they are blue in the face about how innovative they really are, but their clients may take a different view unless they can see tangible results before them. So, as with all things in the business of law, law firms should think how the innovation will benefit the client first, rather than how the innovation sounds in a press release or how it will benefit the firm internally. Only then will their endeavours be truly innovative and – dare I say it? – sexy.
Business leaders have to be fit to survive and succeed in a rapidly evolving business climate, and a common thread across this year’s keynote presentations was that agility = achievement. C-suite executives need to be flexible and dextrous – and the GC role encapsulates this trend.
Global demographics are changing. In 2009, Europe had more middle class persons than anywhere else on earth. Contemporarily, Asia is home to more middle class persons than Europe. Over the next 15 years the global middle class is set to double, with three billion people entering its ranks. Many of these new consumers will come from emerging markets. As the balance of global trade shifts away from G8 economies, businesses and investors are increasingly looking to diversify into these emerging markets and reap the rewards apparent from growing economies.
‘It was hard for we Colombians to imagine an end to a war
that had lasted half a century… Very few of us
– hardly anybody – could recall a memory of a country at peace,’
Juan Manuel Santos, 32nd President of Colombia
For more than 50 years, war has been a way of life in Colombia.
Since the early 1960s, when the Colombian Army renewed aggression towards left-wing guerrilla units set on challenging the standing government’s legitimacy, peace has seemed but a distant goal.
The ongoing conflict saw tens of thousands killed, millions more displaced and a culture of fear perpetuated through murder and massacre, torture and terrorism.
The environment allowed organised crime and drug cultivation to flourish, adding further wrinkles to an already tumultuous situation – wrinkles which would prompt the entry of international players to a conflict which had no obvious solutions.
Several attempts were made at resolving the conflict, with a gradual demobilisation of combatants and guerrilla groups, many of whom were afforded the opportunity to convert into civilian political actors – providing a chance to allay their concerns and have their voices heard in a legitimate way.
But while demobilisation and disarmament was successful in pockets, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – the most prominent of the left-wing guerrilla groups – largely resisted attempts at finding compromise, despite their ranks being depleted and progress waning.
But following four years of negotiations between President Juan Manuel Santos’s administration and FARC, in August 2016, a final ceasefire agreement was announced – an agreement to end the war and, eventually, re-unite the country. While hailed as a monumental feat of diplomacy internationally – one that would finally bring order to a nation ravaged by the effects of the conflict – the response domestically couldn’t have been more divisive.
The peace process, in its current form, drew staunch criticism for a perceived leniency towards FARC – that, while ultimately securing peace, failed to achieve justice for those wronged in the conflict.
In October 2016, the deal – which had already garnered Santos a Nobel Peace Prize – was put to the voting public in a plebiscite. In a shocking turn of events, the agreement failed to pass, with 50.2% voting against the deal. While those based in areas hardest hit were strongly in favour of the agreement, those more insulated in urban areas resisted – causing the initial attempt to fail.
In response, the government signed a revised agreement months later in November, opting this time to ratify through the houses of parliament instead of putting it to the public. The agreement passed unanimously (with the opposition boycotting the vote) and was approved by the courts. But in the absence of a public referendum – the process remains subject to politicisation.
And with elections set for May this year – elections which will feature guaranteed FARC representation in both houses of government – the impact of a new entrant (or even a new government) into an already polarised process has the potential to derail peace and everything achieved so far.
One of the most difficult aspects in pressing forward with any potential plan for long-term peace in Colombia is an underlying apprehension from large swathes of the public – and subsequently, business. While outward opposition can be a difficult stance to take – particularly for major corporates – the impact they can have either way is tangible.
‘It is very difficult for business to take an open opposition to the idea of a peace agreement, because in essence, who can argue against a peace agreement and the termination of one of the biggest factors of violence in Colombia,’ explains Jaime Trujillo, partner at Baker McKenzie and chair of the Latin America Regional Council.
‘There is no doubt that the peace agreement, by definition, is something positive – particularly in this case, when it tackles one of the primary reasons singled out for the lack of development in Colombia. But business cannot be unanimous and individuals will all have their own views, which tend to emerge in private, or in places like deliberations and trade associations.’
‘Business as a whole tends to be a bit more conservative than the general public, so you do see sometimes that those against the peace process in private, tend to be a bit more vociferous and outspoken than when they are in public. So while public statements from business are generally quite positive, in private, there are sectors that are expressing their opposition or serious concern.’
Speaking to business leaders and general counsel across Colombia in late 2017, finding a vocal opposition to the peace deal was far from difficult – particularly considering the sensitivity of the topic at hand. And while personal qualms about any deal that would see the FARC effectively absolved of their crimes was common, a distinct absence of dialogue with the business community was also frequently cited as a reason for opposing the deal in its current form.
One general counsel from a major multinational transportation firm expressed such sentiment, although was unauthorised to speak on the matter publicly.
‘With the nature of the discussions being rather secretive, business leaders have been largely left in the dark throughout the negotiating process. While that may be necessary, a lack of consultation combined with an expectation for business to play a significant role in facilitating the agreement, has left many feeling, at best, left out of the process and, at worst, blindsided and angry,’ they said.
‘Add in the legal frameworks with which businesses will have to now operate within following the eventual conclusion of the process, and we face not just the prospect of political uncertainty in Colombia, but also a new set of rules governing our business. Whenever there is uncertainty, there is risk – and for a risk-averse business such as our own, that uncertainty is why we’d like to go back to the negotiating table and have a say in shaping the corporate landscape that will govern our industry.’
While personal opposition and a lack of proper consultation are both genuine concerns that will need to be addressed if there is any hope for a lasting peace agreement, the prospect of being implicated for complicity during the war remains a major hurdle for attaining business backing.
‘The legal framework that is being set up to deal with the peace process and to deal with the crimes committed during the violence, could potentially expose businessmen for their support of illegal armed groups,’ explains Trujillo.
‘Those businessmen who have been involved in financing illegal armed groups are opposing the process. They’re very concerned that their roles could come to bear, and of course they don’t like that.’
‘There are a number of programmes being piloted that are focused on employing former combatants. It’s not an easy proposition, but it is one way that I think business can make a concrete and tangible contribution to the peace process. In many cases, the first step can be the toughest – humanising these former combatants, seeing that they are people. Just like the next person down the aisle, they are human, capable of contributing to society and, in most cases, they want to turn the page and get on with their lives.
This is a major objective for society and one that Baker McKenzie is contributing towards. Our firm has been working with the government agency in charge of reincorporating former combatants, be they left or right wing. What we are trying to do is educate our clients and our people on the need for this to happen, while making them realise that this doesn’t need to be as difficult as they think. In our case, as a law firm, we have access to important businesses – we put them into contact with the organisations and the government agencies who are working on this, and it seems to be going well.
Of course, we do get consultations from our clients on the legal issues that arise from the implementation of the peace process – be it relating to the lands that were stolen or concerns about how to engage with a contingent of former combatants without getting into trouble legally, or without endangering their business. These are the types of questions we are starting to get, and anticipate we will continue to get for some time.
One of the other real opportunities for business is to help areas of the country to start anew. Particularly in the rural parts of Colombia, for the first time in their history, a number of these areas and the people who populate them will have the opportunity to play a role in a legitimate economy. It is down to Colombia’s business community to educate the population of these areas and teach them what it feels like to operate in an economy that is driven by market forces.’
‘We understand that this was quite widespread in certain parts of the country,’ adds Marc Chernick, Georgetown University professor and director of the Georgetown-Los Andes Program on Conflict Resolution and Human Rights.
‘Those that most appear are large landowners, cattle ranchers and certain multinational companies related to agribusiness and mining, because you couldn’t really operate in many of these areas without either paying off the guerrillas or supporting private armies to keep the guerrillas at bay.’
The government has set up a Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a tribunal to investigate humanitarian crimes and determine justice, which participants in the conflict such as guerrilla fighters and the armed forces will have to face. But there has been a change in the JEP’s jurisdiction over third parties such as landowners and businessmen.
‘The way that JEP was first set up was that all actors in the conflict would have to face the tribunal: guerrillas, the armed forces, police, politicians, and third-party actors such as landowners and businessmen that financed paramilitary activity,’ says Chernick.
‘When they put the implementing legislation to Congress at the end of 2017, the law that set up the tribunal specifically exempted third parties – third parties could not be compelled to go in front of JEP. They could voluntarily go, but they could not be compelled. The business community really did not want to have members facing the JEP.’
‘However, part of the reintegration and transitional justice goes beyond the formal justice process. There’s a Truth Commission which will address aspects that the justice portion doesn’t.’
The Truth Commission will comprise a significant portion of the transitional justice component of the peace process. Unlike the Transitional Justice Tribunal, which will conduct investigations into criminal activity, the Truth Commission is tasked with finding out just what happened in Colombia that led to, and perpetuated, the conflict.
‘What victims demand most, even more than reparations or personal justice, is learning the truth. They want to know what happened, how it happened, when it happened, where it happened and why it happened,’ explained President Santos upon ratifying the Commission.
‘This is not about embarking on a witch hunt or a river of random accusations, but rather, it is to encourage those who have had some responsibility for the conflict to simply admit them.’
To that end, the Commission will not have the ability to impose penalties or to transfer any evidence it receives into a criminal court – an extremely contentious portion of the overall transitional justice setup. In the past, when similar efforts have been attempted as part of the restorative justice process – for example, in Bosnia and Northern Ireland – they have failed spectacularly. But there’s confidence abound that Colombia can find a way to make it work.
‘The transitional justice process has generated most of the contradictory comments from the people opposing the peace process – it was difficult for the country to accept. However, it is already working and we should now focus on making it accepted and ensure that the process is trustworthy,’ says Paula Samper, president of the board of the Colombian Chamber of Legal Services.
A lack of faith in the justice process is evident through large sections of society, based on the conversations GC had while in Colombia. Fundamental to this is a disagreement over whether the justice process should be seeking to enforce punitive measures or focus purely on achieving peace for the long-term greater good – as the agreement dictates.
‘Those that are accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity will have to go before the Tribunal, but if they tell the truth – all of the truth – and admit their culpability, then they will be eligible for lenient sentences. Crimes below the level of war crimes or crimes against humanity would be eligible for amnesty,’ explains Chernick.
‘That prompted an outcry from various sectors of the human rights community, but those involved have made it clear that justice, especially transitional justice, is not just about punishing FARC or even holding the armed forces accountable.’
Even those in the human rights community disagree on what the most appropriate course of action is, but taking lessons from past attempts at reintegrating ex-combatants, it is hoped that a more forgiving and proactively positive approach can mitigate the stigmatisation which has plagued previous efforts.
‘It’s important to prove to society that crime doesn’t pay, and we have been working closely with ex-combatants and people with a criminal background. This was necessary because it forms part of the history of our country and we felt that these people needed to be treated with dignity, because that is the only way these wounds would heal,’ says Joshua Mitrotti, director of the Agencia Colombiana para la Reintegración (ACR).
Mitrotti’s organisation plays a crucial role in the reintegration efforts and is responsible for coordinating efforts to return demobilised people from the conflict who voluntarily desire to rejoin society.
‘The main and most important part of the DDR [disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration – key tenets of long-term peacekeeping] process is the reintegration – that is fundamental and therefore there’s no room for failure in this particular aspect,’ says Mitrotti.
In the past, former combatants have been subject to stigmatisation within communities, which, coupled with a lack of education, has meant adjusting to life in civil society has been challenging.
‘In past accords, it was front and centre that former combatants would go through a process of reintegration and re-entering society, and the government would work with the private sector to hire them. The most recent agreement has less of that – there’s still opportunity, and the business sector is still encouraging that kind of thing,’ explains Chernick.
From a company perspective, Unilever absolutely supports the peace process and is willing to contribute. It’s something we see as an opportunity.
We already have a very strong sustainability plan and the peace process gives us the chance to implement and further develop that plan by working with small growers and communities looking for an uplift. We are then able to work with them to give them options for developing entrepreneurial activities, which can raise the productivity and incomes across the board.
In our case, the government hasn’t pushed us to do anything. Instead, we’re looking to replicate an initiative we undertook in India where we worked with women in poor communities. We help them start businesses working as small distributors in their communities – it was hugely successful there and we’ve since brought the concept to Colombia and other countries across Central America.
This was an initiative which we pioneered, but we were also able to obtain support from the Inter-American Development Bank in order to improve the life conditions of some communities. In India, we targeted women in particular, because they tended to have a more submissive role within the communities. The ability to counter this as well as develop entrepreneurial skills and spirit is something we hope will pay dividends with lasting effect within these communities.
From a business perspective, this is excellent for Unilever, but more importantly, it’s a key initiative within our broader plan of sustainability. We want to impact one billion lives through our sustainability initiative – these are our consumers, our employees, our providers and our suppliers.
While some companies have initiatives around sustainability in Colombia – and across the region more generally – it’s not a topic which is very strong yet. It’s going to be in the future, but it’s not quite there yet. This is something that the private sector is taking upon itself to develop.
Turning internally, there are a number of focuses for us.
Looking ahead, our legal team is focusing on two things. The first is simplification. For us, as a team, simplification is key: the simplification of processes, the way we manage processes, of legal counselling, of having more views of technology. Secondly, we want to focus on having our lawyers more as a business tool, rather than as a blocker. That’s very important to us.
As well as that, corruption is always a hot topic. For Unilever, our major area of concern is private corruption. Yes, public corruption is always a threat, but the risk is lower for us because we aren’t involved in public works or similar projects, so therefore don’t have a strong link with the government or public entities. When it comes to private corruption, a big area of concern is antitrust compliance. Our antitrust policy is very strong, and we give constant training to the business population to create a culture of antitrust inside the business. Our internal compliance programme is very active. We have put in place special processes to enable this. For instance, we have a compliance officer as well as a compliance committee in every operation. These committees are in charge of reviewing all of the cases and making a decision, either to close an operation down or implement lesser measures. For example, each year we analyse more than 100 complaints on a variety of compliance matters, which speaks to the alertness of our people in raising a flag whenever there is something suspicious.’
‘FARC has said that they view the accord differently – that they don’t necessarily envision that former combatants will go back into society and get jobs. Instead, they’re promoting a different model where the group stays together and they collectively invest in productive enterprises in different parts of the country.’
The reality for Colombia in the long term is that both FARC’s idea of normalisation and the government’s more traditional approach will provide different – perhaps symbiotic – pathways to peace and post-war life. But without buy-in from society as a whole, finding a long-term solution will prove difficult, if not impossible.
‘It’s not easy, especially for people who were victims of this, but we need to make people realise that we are all Colombian and we need to turn the page. The overwhelming majority of former combatants make very good employees or small businessmen, but we need to give them the opportunities to do that,’ says Trujillo.
‘Business needs to play its part, whether that’s by employing them, buying their products or financing their projects. Of course, that’s not easy, but if we want peace to last for several generations, we need to be open to that.’
Businesses have already played an essential role in reintegration efforts, with companies like Coca-Cola FEMSA and Unilever among those that have offered the demobilised population employment, capacity building through volunteers helping to train and educate, as well as providing opportunities to become directly involved in their supply chains.
‘But there is more that the private sector could do. If we don’t manage to turn the page as a country, we cannot thrive,’ says Samper.
‘Companies should be prepared to support those areas where the population suffered the most, ensure that there is a safe return to society, with employment opportunities, better access to public services and better education. If we don’t work on these basic issues, the social unrest will return.’
Decades of war have worn on Colombia’s capacity for business growth, but as the country moves into a post-conflict era, there is finally room for development – on all fronts. The National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF) is forecasting economic peace benefits of between 0.5% and 1% of additional growth per year from 2017 to 2022.
But the scale of ambition apparent for big business goes far beyond incremental improvements.
‘How our country is branded moving forward will have a big impact in unlocking our potential. When you’ve been branded as a country at war, plagued by guerrillas and paramilitary, that has an impact on your ability to attract investment and, subsequently, growth for the economy,’ says the general counsel of a major international technology company.
‘When security goes up, when you start to instead be branded as a safe country, good things are going to happen on the economic side. Attracting investment into our economy, into our country, opening up the tourist economy – these are all factors which can make a major difference for Colombia.’
Anecdotally speaking, foreign investors, with their distance from domestic politics, have been much more openly positive about Colombia as an investment destination following the peace process than domestic investors. That said, sentiment was positive that this would be likely to change over the medium term, with Trujillo noting that consultations at his firm for projects around infrastructure, tourism and agribusiness were already on the uptick.
‘It’s absolutely undeniable that peace is good for business, and I think that as results start to come in, as businesses start to operate in areas that were previously off limits, as it becomes apparent that former combatants are as good employees, or better than other employees or entrepreneurs, those types of tangible, concrete, practical results will likely put an end to this theoretical hypothetical debate that is going around the peace process,’ says Trujillo.
‘That is perhaps the biggest contribution that businesses can make – getting down to the business of implementing peace, and showing people that whatever you think about it from an ideological and political perspective, from a business perspective it makes absolute sense.’
‘There will come a point where the private sector will have to work closely with FARC, to use their experience and convey their knowledge and expertise,’ adds Mitrotti.
‘The dynamic will change and the private sector will eventually become an ally for these ex-combatants. We feel that the private sector does have a very important role in building the country, but that role is still yet to be defined.’
Evidence of collaboration and co-investment are already apparent in pockets across Colombia, but as time passes, confidence remains high that the breadth and depth of such ventures – as well as business growth as a whole – will continue to perpetuate.
‘The peace process brings the opportunity to explore many regions of our country which were previously impossible for companies to consider because of public order,’ says Samper.
‘The agricultural businesses should be able to thrive in a safer country. Investments in productive lands, forestry and other agribusiness ventures have a wonderful opportunity. This should also ensure that the economic conditions of the people who inhabit these regions also improve, with access to employment, social security and education.’
But in order for agribusiness in particular to have the opportunity to truly thrive in Colombia, one of the most contentious issues of the entire process needs to be resolved: land. Specifically, land distribution.
Land inequality in Colombia is the worst in Latin America – Oxfam reports that over 80% of the land is owned by 1% of the population – and is considered to be a structural cause of the present conflict.
The violence has only exacerbated the problem. The displacement of huge numbers of peasant farmers, combined with the invasion of state-owned land by those without an official claim, has meant that 11.5% of all land has been dispossessed. The result has been a chaos of title throughout rural Colombia.
Now, the peace accord presents an opportunity for order. But the complexity of the task ahead has caused concern among some sections of the private sector, who fear that lands they have been operating may be confiscated. To them, Colombia could become a new Venezuela.
‘The business community stressed that there needs to be greater provision to safeguard private property and to allow landowners to keep their land. In the first accord they would not be able to maintain that title – if they were state lands, they would revert to state lands, and they wouldn’t be able to lay claim. Very few farmers are entitled to their land,’ says Chernick.
‘But there is provision to sort that out – those who illegally occupied state land but have made it productive can make a case that they are doing good, and that their interests weren’t involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity, so they will have an opportunity to keep it.’
This leniency given to those who manage to make their land productive is a move to seize upon the opportunity to finally make use of the long under-exploited Colombian countryside, where recent figures have shown that just 22% of the country’s arable land was being cultivated.
‘The amount of land that is either in the hands of the Colombian government, or that is vacant, or that has been taken away from drug barons and mafia figures – that real estate alone is enormous,’ says Trujillo.
‘To help these areas, in many aspects, to start anew, and for the first time in their history play a role in a legitimate economy – and educating the population of those areas in what it feels like for there to be a market economy driven by economic forces. It could be, in a sense, a very interesting experiment on how you can start from a clean state and develop something from the ground up.’
With opportunity comes challenge. The muddied waters of rural land ownership will need to be carefully unpacked – a job that will inevitably fall to the country’s legal services sector.
‘For law firms in particular, doing the title search and establishing whether or not a piece of land is affected by this is a huge task and we anticipate it’s going to be one of the most relevant new areas of expertise that many law firms will have to develop,’ says Trujillo.
‘The legal framework around these types of land is seeking to create owners and to formalise ownership of these lands and give them deeds of property. What this means is to create a country of landowners, which will generate some very positive effects, perhaps most notable of which is exposure to the financial system.’
Access to the financial system – both at a domestic and global level – in addition to the financial literacy that comes with it, opens up the potential for exponential growth in Colombia over the coming years. And while that is an important factor for improving the quality of life and scale of ambition for the population, it also stands to play a role in maintaining the new status quo.
‘Continual investment is going to be necessary for our economy to remain a going concern. The government is going to have to deal with the costs associated with the major investment being made in the peace process,’ says the general counsel of a domestic infrastructure firm.
‘From a business perspective, how we cope with that from a tax perspective in particular is a critical issue in the coming years. If the government cannot find ways to fulfil their obligations made under the agreement without crippling the business sector, we could be right back where we started before we know it.’
In the shorter term however, the next crucial step in the peace process is the elections coming up in May, which will effectively serve as a second referendum on the peace agreement. With President Santos, who has guided Colombia through the process to date, ineligible to run – the impact his successor will have on the future of the country stands to be monumental.
‘This is when the population will have to vote for or against the agreement. I think in any case, we find ourselves in Colombia experiencing the best humanitarian situation that most of us have experienced in our lifetime,’ says Mitrotti.
‘Colombia can be seen as an example of how a country can rebuild itself – a country who almost failed, was dragged into a war, but found a way to build itself up and offer an alternative way to move forward. It up to the voters now to decide how we can rebuild for future generations.’
Yet despite the potential for years of work to be undone overnight depending on the outcome of the vote, what stood out above all for those GC spoke to was an unbound commitment to pragmatism despite what happens.
‘There is still much work which has to be done. Distribution of wealth, creation of jobs, creating safer environments, fighting other violent groups and building a new society are all issues to be overcome,’ says Samper.
‘But it is certainly better to do that without killing each other.’
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