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

Some of our most significant activities include:

Legal structuring of Braskem’s mechanised recycling project, in which R$67mn will be invested in the construction of a recycling line, with the capacity to transform around 250 million packages into 14 thousand tons of high-quality post-consumer resin a year, in Indaiatuba, São Paulo.

Legal structuring of Braskem’s advanced recycling project, with contributions estimated at R$44mn, for the feasibility of a chemical recycling plant, to chemically transform, through the pyrolysis process, plastic waste that is difficult to be mechanically recycled into raw material certified circular. This project covered the negotiation of complex contracts, notably (i) the pyrolysis oil purchase contract; (ii) and stock option instrument in the SPE that will explore the business of producing and selling pyrolysis oil;

Enabling Braskem’s competition program, which consists of a set of actions aimed at the company’s competition compliance and includes structuring of governance for the management of the program, preparation of internal guiding documents, training for senior leadership (board of directors and executive board) and commercial areas, competitive pills, e-learning, among other expedients aimed at competition compliance.

Responsible for the process of improving the contract management system, covering the definition of the contract registration process, electronic signature, guidance documentation on proper use, extraction of management reports and definition of KPI’s for the legal department.

Structuring of M&A projects for investments in recycling and biopolymers projects in Brazil and abroad. Operations that allowed Braskem to evolve in pursuit of its sustainability commitments specifically in recycled content, reaching 300 thousand tons of sales of products with recycled content by 2025: (i) formation in August 2022 of a joint venture in the Netherlands, controlled by Braskem, whose nominal mechanical recycling capacity is 23 thousand tons per year, which transforms mixed plastic waste into compression molded parts (plates for use in construction and pallets); and (ii) acquisition of a 61.1% equity interest in Wise Plásticos, a company in the mechanical recycling sector focused on polypropylene (PP) resins.

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?

The selection of an external legal partner that understands the company’s values ​​and organisational culture is fundamental for recognising the strategic role played by the company’s internal legal area in choosing its partners for the effective viability of business.

The office is required not only to have an adequate understanding of the company’s business interests and strategic objectives, but also to read the business context for certain transactional models. Firms that lack creative solutions or have an excessively combative/adversarial negotiating posture, without an adequate perception of the central negotiating points, tend to be reconsidered for engagements in future projects.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

The implementation of technologies in legal departments will certainly play a decisive role in the qualified performance of the internal legal department, which must be increasingly attentive to performance indicators (KPIs), data management and optimisation of legal activities in a constant search for efficiency. In this perspective, it is worth highlighting the benefits obtained by the implementation of digital systems, such as the contract management and storage system, the automation system for verifying and paying invoices, the litigation management system, etc.

New technologies are fundamental instruments to ensure the strategic performance of Internal Lawyers, who must focus on the technical and material issues of their activities in serving Business Partners.

Technological opportunities constantly appear, and it is up to managers to constantly monitor new technologies and functionalities that can improve the management of legal departments.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

The construction of robust relationships with business partners must be based not only on trust, but also on the ability of the in-house lawyer to understand the strategic objectives of the business/transaction, to be guided towards its viability, without prejudice to legal certainty and compliance with the Company’s policies.