What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Recently, we have been involved in transactions and cases including the design of several legal strategies for debt recovery, originating from the grant of paid sick leave to workers during the pandemic. Our strategies allowed us to achieve a significant recovery for the company, through satisfactory agreements between the parties. We have also been involved in bids where we have been awarded the contract and executed commercial transactions that have allowed us to obtain significant income for the company. Also, the design of new products or services with the commercial team to meet the current needs of our customers in this new reality has been well received in the market, allowing us to maintain our position as a leading company in private security. We also designed the legal strategy in union negotiations, successfully closing collective bargaining agreements, which has allowed us to obtain a 70% reduction in claims, complaints, and labour processes, as well as a reduction in the percentage of union members per month. Lastly, we have worked on the reduction of legal contingencies for more than four million soles, through favorable pronouncements for the company in judicial and arbitration proceedings.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

I predict the use of artificial intelligence for the automatic generation of legal documents and to determine the predictability of success in court cases. It would also be quite interesting to see smart contracts, as well, which are the digital version of a traditional physical contract with the added important feature of being able to execute automatically and autonomously. Paperless offices will be a reality soon too. Today, signatures of persons involved in a transaction are increasingly made digitally and this of course brings its own challenges in the legal world such as: evaluating control mechanisms to verify the authenticity (not only of the signatures) but of the digital documents themselves. For this, we have blockchain, this transaction validation mechanism that does not need for an intermediary and certifies immutable data, which offers a solution to the authenticity of the documents that are signed. Today I cannot imagine a future where technology is not included in legal management. Legal areas must continuously seek efficiency and technological tools undoubtedly contribute to this.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

G4S, like many companies worldwide, was affected by the pandemic that we have been experiencing since March 2020. In the case of the legal area, we refocused the strategy of the G4S in-house team and ensured that it was aligned with the corporate strategy of the entire company, a strategy today focused on process efficiency with ambitious objectives, which in fact I would summarise as “Doing more with less”. In view of this, we implemented a strategy based on four key points: (i) creation of efficient processes supported by technology, Legal Tracker, Salesforce, among others; (ii) internal customer satisfaction; (iii) high level of compliance in the company’s operation; (iv) adding value to the company to make it more competitive in the market. It was challenging, but today we have a team using automated processes, with agile digital transactions through reliable and secure platforms that allow us to guarantee the security of the company’s information and with satisfied external and internal customers. Previously, all contracts were signed in handwritten form. The pandemic has taught lawyers that we must be prepared to operate under unexpected scenarios, measuring legal risk accurately, quickly and accompanying the business at the speed that circumstances may require.