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

Our organisation is going through a change process, aiming to become more competitive in the local market by enhancing its banking products and services. Some of the new services to be offered to our customers are the provision of debit card services, electronic baking and participation in TARGET Services, where I am involved in facilitating due diligence, covering all legal aspects, always taking into account the applicable laws, rules and regulations, while providing comprehensive information and advice to the management and the team working on the above projects. I have focused on the legal analysis, risk and compliance assessment and evaluation of all aspects concerned with implementing the processes to enable us to complete our strategies with minimum exposure to risks. 

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? 

Taking the risk of working with external lawyers misaligned with the company’s values could harm the organisation by detrimentally affecting its reputation, success and financial status. For that reason, the relationship between the in-house and external lawyers is a key ingredient of a successful organisation, especially in our case, where the bank serves international customers based in various jurisdictions. That means our external lawyers must understand the bank’s business model, strategies, and exposure to different sectors and industries due to our customer’s business specialisation and, at the same time, align with the company’s values to ethically and legally influence the final decisions taken by the organisation. I firmly believe that choosing the right external legal mind who knows how to navigate the organisation and avoid all legal complexities and adverse impacts is an investment since it is an extension of our in-house team.