How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?  

Some of the main strategies that I suggest being implemented and personally have proven to add value to the company in crisis moments are the construction and following of a contingency plan for different crisis scenarios and legal strategies for each case. This exercise leads you to ensure immersed activities such as risk assessment, a detailed regulatory and compliance review and update and ensure internal communication related to the contingency plans. Also, it is important to review active contracts and update templates for future agreements accordingly. Finally, working with communications team to ensure reputational management.  

But this strategy will not be successful if it is not aligned with the business needs. Continuous training and education, and proactivity in the integration with the management team and interdepartmental collaboration, will give you the business understanding to ensure giving an accurate and adding value legal support.  

This will help mitigate legal risks during times of crisis and ensure that the legal team actively contributes to the company’s long-term resilience and sustainability. 

What are the main cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?  

At the beginning of 2024 we have been successful on a arbitration procedure against a former contractor and the insurance company, regarding a breach of contract and its consequent damages and losses, for US$1mn. We are currently leading a litigation against one of our gas suppliers for an unproven force majeure which impacted around US$10mn. 

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?  

GdO is currently leading different sustainability projects, mainly focused in operation decarbonisation, waste management, communities economic training and work opportunities, sponsorship of full scholarships for university studies, water conservation, biodiversity protection, among others. 

The general counsel role is pivotal in driving and ensuring sustainable practices within operations and plays a critical role in embedding sustainability into the corporate fabric. Many companies have fusion legal, and sustainability matters under one corporate structure to optimise operations and linking both processes, as a strategic part of the organisations. Sustainability has gone far away beyond what initially has been considered and nowadays is a transversal function within companies with economic, environmental, government and social impact, hence, legal advisory and sustainability matters must walk together. 

General counsel shall consider actions as proactive legal guidance in sustainability matters, environmental aspects and communities management, ensuring regulatory and compliance topics. From a corporate governance perspective, the general counsel will ensure contractual obligations and partnerships, board involvement, policies development, risk management, prompt due diligence update, transparency and ethical leadership. All this matters, directly related to the sustainability impact.  

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?  

Many of emerging technologies are aimed to transform how legal services are delivered, managed, and experienced. Let’s mention only some examples of this. AI and machine learning tools could streamline legal research, document reviews, precedents identification. Predictive analytics could be used for litigation prediction outcomes which is helpful on case strategy design. Smart contracts and chain of custody are now supported by blockchain technologies. Natural language processing and data analytics can help on legal documentation automation and chatbots answers. Data protection also could be reinforced with strong cybersecurity systems. 

All these technological advances mean that lawyers must not only keep up to date on legal issues but also on new technology developments that allow companies to be protected and optimise the provision of legal services, for which legal education programs, blogs, professional associations and conferences, webinars and networking become a good source of information.