About

Marie Claire Palacios de Bauer started working in the legal industry early, commencing her first legal position during her first year of law school. Her first position was legal assistant in the IP department of a law firm in Guatemala, A.D Sosa & Soto, and then went on to serve as a paralegal of a major Central American law firm, Arias. After graduating, she started working in the private sector as the in-house counsel in the Chamber of Industry and then worked her way up to becoming general counsel for American investment company, Americas Media Services, a company that owns different subsidiaries and affiliates in Latin America in different industries related to media services. Working in private practice and in-house in private companies, has given her a different perspective of the law, as she explains: ‘Being consulted on different legal questions, and deciding on the best way to handle legal issues is the type of challenge that makes me permanently study and grow in my knowledge, while opening my mind to think from different perspectives than the ones I was taught in law school’. In 2016 she was contacted by Centro Distribuidor, a Guatemalan company whose main business for 50 years has been the distribution of pharmaceutical and consumer products. Palacios was appointed as in-house legal counsel and compliance officer to ensure the compliance of laws, regulations, international standards and contractual compromises in the complexity of the pharmaceutical industry. Her main roles of responsibility are leading and coordinating the compliance team and external lawyers to provide the best legal support and ensure the compliance of the company and its affiliates of all the legal, regulatory and contractual obligations. Since there was no legal department prior to getting hired, the main challenge for Palacios was the incorporation of the new area in the company and its structure, then the incorporation of a team and to ensure that all the different areas of the company know the purpose of the legal function. ‘This has affected the company in a positive way, by creating a culture of legal compliance and ethics, where the role of the legal and compliance team has become very important within the daily operations. In addition, the implementation of an anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy has elevated the standards of the company which has been acknowledged by its clients and providers’, she says.