About

‘We are business lawyers. This means that we try not to be involved only in the legal review of the company matters, we try to give the best advice in every company decision in each business operation to maximise the reward for the company. We believe that the legal area should help all areas of the company from the beginning of each project always looking for the best solution for the business’, says general counsel Carlos López Martín de Blas, who leads the in-house legal team of Secuoya Grupo de Comunicación. He presides over a team containing four internal lawyers, as well as several high level experts giving services on specific issues such as tax and labour law, all combining to serve the Spanish audio-visual company in a comprehensive and dynamic way. The Group has, in just eight years, already become a leading company in the Spanish audio-visual market, and the legal team has been a key element in its growth, being described by López Martín de Blas as ‘one of the strongest and main pillars in the success of the company’. He is directly supported by three ‘top counselors’ – Jorge Sánchez Sánchez, Javier Bermudez de Castro and Isabel Habela Sanz – who each have a vast experience and proficiency in the main legal disciplines required to deal with and overcome all matters related to an international media group. López Martín de Blas explains their contributions as involving ‘tireless efforts, daily dedication, patience and knowledge to successfully achieving all legal and business challenges, always working as a team’. The team’s role within the Group has evolved, and the incorporation of the legal area to the business matters has been essential to support the development of the business of the companies, changing the perspective and the perception of the commercial structure in relation to the legal departments and counting on them as an ‘indissoluble part of the business’. The team has participated actively and directly in the creation and consolidation of the business and even to be a vector of growth of the company in a stronger way. In terms of transactions, the team has been central to the important negotiation and closing of agreements with Netflix for its establishment in Spain in the facilities of Secuoya Studios in Madrid. Additionally, the team coordinated and executed a refinancing of the Group with US funds, implementing two national television outsourcing services in Latin America following the business model in Spain, adapted the new European Data Protection regulation for all companies in the Group, and in the end, developed AIE (Economic Interest Groups) models for the financing of films, as well as the development of a tax rebate model for attracting foreign producers and investors to carry out the filming of their films in Spanish territory.