About

The second largest retailer in the world and the largest in Europe, the Carrefour Group currently has over 9,900 company-owned and franchise stores. The legal team of Carrefour Spain consists of 18 lawyers and five non-legal professionals, where the most senior legal members include: Juan Riego Vila – general counsel, Leonor Abeal García – head of real estate, José Manuel Torres Mora – head of corporate, Alfonso Gonzalez Llano – head of general commercial and data protection officer, Sergio Arribas Sacristán – head of litigation and consumers affairs, and Juan Domínguez Churruca – legal director real estate asset management. The legal department is structured to focus on four areas: real estate involving M&A, town planning and administrative matters; litigation and consumer affairs such as criminal compliance; in general commercial including data protection and IP; and corporate governance of the Group companies in Spain. The four areas closely work together in order to provide legal support to the company in a fast, effective and business oriented manner with extremely high standards of quality, always focusing on safeguarding the company’s interests as well as working to fulfil its objectives, in line with the Group’s strategy. During the last few years, the priority for the team has been the use of technology to improve work efficiency in the legal function, focusing on how technology can help transform processes and automate legal tasks, enabling lawyers to concentrate more on business challenges and less on administrative or non-legal work. The legal team has also made significant efforts and contributions to adapt the company’s practices to a new regulatory environment with the launch of GDPR and the French Sapin II Law on anticorruption. In accordance with Carrefour’s expansion strategy, the legal team has contributed largely to the real estate projects and M&A transactions that led to the opening of more than 150 establishments in 2018. Commenting on the team ethos, general counsel Riego Vila states: ‘Our in-house lawyers develop a dual role, acting as legal guarantors for the company on one hand, ensuring compliance with law and company internal procedures and policies, and on the other hand trying to help the company achieve its goals and strategy’. He further adds: ‘The Spanish legal team is a highly qualified, motivated and committed team, based not only on the individual experience achieved by each lawyer, but also on the common experience gained after many years of working together’.