About

Founded by Alfred Nobel in 1872, MAXAM has grown into a global entity with a presence in more than 45 countries. In the last 20 years, it has developed into a large multinational group, specialising in the development, manufacture and sale of civil explosives, products and services for the defence industry, key raw materials for the nitro chemical industry and solutions in the field of safety and environment. The company’s international growth has been skilfully supported by a legal team that is populated with highly experienced, creative and globally-focused individuals. This team has been led by general counsel Carlos Gastañaduy for over 18 years, in which he has helped ensure MAXAM’s security and sustainable growth. Gastañaduy believes that the team’s work is as challenging as ever, commenting: ‘we must on a daily basis deal with the needs for legal advice of a Group made up of almost 150 companies, located in more than 45 countries in five continents’. Providing support to an organisation of this global complexity is no small feat considering the size of the team: ‘The corporate legal team is made of six lawyers and one paralegal based in Madrid, and one lawyer working from London. In addition to that, we have local lawyers in our subsidiaries in Portugal, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Romania and Kazakhstan’, says Gastañaduy. As MAXAM has grown, the legal team has cultivated individuals that have been able to advance their skills in line with the business’ need. In particular, three senior lawyers were singled out for their work on different regional and business areas, namely Blanca Manzano, Maren García-Valle and Jamol Askarov. Lawyers such as these have helped MAXAM continue its expansion, and as an example of their impact Gastañaduy points to a recent project completed in Singapore. The project involved ‘setting up a subsidiary in Singapore and seeking the relevant permits; negotiating the contract with the prime contractor; negotiating contracts with raw/intermediate products suppliers in South Africa and Malaysia; and arranging logistic services with a local logistic service provider. This entire project was carried out by one of our senior lawyers with limited local legal support. At the end of the day, this project meant working and negotiating with five different companies in five different countries, in three continents. Five years ago I would not have imagined this could happen’. It is the constant ability to adapt to the global level of business, and the associated creativity that this demands, which draws attention to the exceptional team at MAXAM.