About

Terpel’s legal department of 19 lawyers is divided into a legal industry management and a corporate legal office. The legal management team is further divided into three sub-teams by specialised topics. One team is specialised on fuels chain supply and its regulation, the second on energy, gas and lubricants chain supply and the third one on convenience stores, company owned service stations and marketing. This division strengthens the team’s knowledge and increases legal advice effectiveness. The corporate legal team has four specialised lawyers that provide full support in corporate matters such as good governance, legal investor relationship, compliance, prevention of corrupt practices and anti-money-laundering acts, securities regulation, and subsidiaries legal affairs. It also looks after the responses of any authority requirement, other than labour and tax, as well as mortgage issuance for client loans, IP and jurisdictional defence. The overall legal department is led by Daniel Perea Villa, vice president of corporate and legal affairs, and includes legal manager María José García, senior legal leaders Andrea Fajardo, Andrea Garzón and Ana María Cantillo as well as director of corporate legal affairs Jorge Andrés Ríos Gómez. Recent highlights of the team’s work include the acquisition of the Exxonmobil’s downstream assets in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, as well as the adoption and enforcement of the prevention of corrupt practices and AML acts systems for the entire company. Perea highlights that ‘our highest interest and driving force is to support Terpel’s business and be a real partner in the achievement of commercial goals within a comprehensive legal structure’. There has been a transformation of the lawyers’ approach to legal affairs, who have broadened their legal perspective and become facilitators of a competitive strategy whilst always protecting the company from a regulatory point of view. Perea identifies that ‘under this general scheme, our lawyers have developed skills to support the company’s businesses as allies and consultants. The global view of our business, outlining its players, impacts and interests has allowed us to visualise a clear horizon, a position in which the company has maintained its leadership, aligning its corporate strategy with its business lines’ strategies’.