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

The legal team assesses potential risks related to the company’s activities, considering the legal environment in which it operates, and court positions, with the purpose of always applying and executing the best interpretation of Brazilian law. Despite that, on tax matters, for instance, Brazilian tax legislation is very complex, creating an environment in the country that leads most of the companies to be involved in tax litigation. Accordingly, Ambev is involved in disputes with the tax authorities. Recently, the Administrative Court of Tax Appeals rendered favorable decisions to the company on relevant matters.

With regards to corporate matters, our team has been responsible for a variety of transactions involving partnerships and investments in general, with companies of different sizes, ranging from start-ups to consolidated players in the market, in segments such as logistics, sustainability and technology. Our key competency focuses on driving future growth and supporting the company’s transformation agenda into a platform business. In recent years, we have developed capabilities around a new investment paradigm, marked by expansion into other categories, increase in technological capabilities, evolving customer and consumer needs, openness to minority investments and the search for synergy models.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

Ethics and integrity proclaimed by the external law firms are essentially important, because they are entrusted with the management of delicate legal matters on behalf of the company, so the way they behave will be the image that the company shows and, some sometimes also its responsibility. Of course, we are willing to check if external law firms share the ethical values with which we carry out our commercial activity.

In general, what would you like to see change about the external law firms you use? Examples could be greater flexibility in billing, a more expansive suite of services offered, more transparency in reporting ESG statistics etc.

In general, we believe that laws firm should be aligned with our business, understanding our needs, priorities, and foundations. Particularly, in some specific areas, such as litigation, we see the need to develop a more business-oriented vision for law firms. We also see some space for the law firms to evolve in technology-related aspects, bringing more innovative solutions, both to the products they offer and for the solutions they propose.

As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

From my experience, I would highlight skills such as pragmatism, objectivity, a capacity to simplify legal issues to business partners, and a business-oriented vision aligned to the compliance of the law.