About

Microsoft’s corporate, external and legal affairs (CELA) team in Spain is formed by five lawyers and three non-lawyers, and is organised around three functions – legal affairs, government and policy affairs, and a digital crime unit (DCU) in charge of Microsoft’s cybersecurity legal work. Each function is led by a senior lawyer or director who reports to CELA Europe’s senior management, and closely interacts with Microsoft Spain’s country manager and leadership team. The legal affairs function is led by Asier Crespo; the government and policy affairs function is led by Montserrat Pardo and Gabriel Lopez; and DCU is led by Helena Pons-Charlet. Crespo is a highly praised lawyer, with one nominator saying he has ‘an unusual breadth of experience and in-depth knowledge in technology law. An expert in intellectual property, software and privacy, Crespo is a frequent public speaker and advocate of Microsoft’s commitment to business and society at large’. In the last two years, Microsoft’s CELA Spain team has successfully accomplished a number of goals. On the legal affairs side, the team has implemented Microsoft’s shared innovation initiative in Spain. This initiative is based on a set of principles designed to address co-created technology and intellectual property (IP) issues that give customers clarity and confidence regarding their work with Microsoft. The initiative is designed to strike a healthy balance that will both help customers grow their business through technology and enable Microsoft to continue to improve its platform products. The government and policy affairs team has led public discussion in Spain around ethics and artificial intelligence. ‘We have launched the book “The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society”, which urges for the deployment of AI systems that meet ethical principles like fairness, privacy, security and inclusiveness, supported by fundamental transparency and accountability. This approach is already benefiting many people in the healthcare, manufacturing, telecom and education sectors’, explains Crespo. The DCU team has successfully led a campaign against “tech scam”, a fraud where criminals pretend to be Microsoft support technicians. DCU has also partnered with Europol, local law enforcement authorities and public prosecutors specialised in combatting cybercrimes, to fight against the criminal organisations that carry out these activities, often from distant countries or using intermediary call-centres. The impact of this campaign has been both global and local, with strong results stemming from the public-private collaboration of Microsoft with the law enforcement authorities.