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

The company underwent a significant restructuring process, which was influenced by its receipt of State aid. This restructuring presented a series of objectives and tight timelines that required the organisation to comply with regulatory and contractual requirements. As a result, the legal department faced the challenge of ensuring the continuity of normal banking operations while actively participating in the investment process that was mandated. 

The investment process, particularly in terms of mergers and acquisitions, had a substantial impact on the day-to-day activities of the company. This included the closure of several international units, which involved navigating complex regulatory and contractual obligations. Simultaneously, the company had to divest non-strategic assets, such as the sale of the assurance company, the investment bank in 2015, and non-performing loans (NPLs) through a fund. 

This period of transition and streamlining resulted in a concentration of the company’s activities in Portugal. The team faced the challenge of managing these circumstances, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and effectively executing the necessary divestments and closures. Despite the inherent complexities, the Department successfully navigated these challenges, balancing the ongoing banking business with the demands of the restructuring process. 

Since, in addition to assets, stakes in companies, etc., we also had the objective of reducing the balance sheet, whether by selling non-performing credit assets, or also by selling estate. Therefore, the last few years I would say were years in which we had a very strong focus on M&A and divestment actions. Normally, depending on the size of the assets and operations, we naturally also rely on external help, support and external support, but deep down we are concerned about having someone here in the department to monitor and above all the larger relationships, those naturally must be monitored internally. In terms of challenges, I think that what is quite interesting is also to associate them with the troubled period and the context in which we were born, in fact we had a specific level of litigation.  

What went completely beyond what was normal, the litigation of a department of a bank and which also forced us to also must dimension ourselves and must, basically, also owe us external support here for that. The contentious interest, in addition to Portugal, is also very contentious abroad, which is always something that is also a challenge for local teams. On the other hand, being a sector in which we operate, a highly regulated sector that has, let’s say, a constant regulatory and legislative production, there is always this concern and need for teams to permanently monitor various businesses, accessing negative actions, to take off the useless and therefore it is something that in our day to day has been, in short, everything that is the financial sector, but in our particular case it has been something that has also occupied the team here a lot. 

Finally, right, I would highlight something that is also very important here, which is that nowadays the financial sector, the banking sector, is a sector completely in transformation, that is, it is a typically very traditional sector and nowadays you have to find everything what are new ways of reaching customers, new ways of contracting. There is a very natural and healthy competition almost from fintech and perhaps also from less regulated entities with less reflection and it forces us here, it forces the bank to have to be innovative, it forces it to have to reformulate processes internally. And those things are always things that, at the end of the day, need a lot here in the legal department area. Electronic signatures, remote settlements, all operations are carried out from the point of view of apps and purposes. Therefore, all this, let’s say, this simplification of what the banking business is brings about a very great need for support, in fact, from the legal department, and it means that there is great security in operations here.