Team size: Three

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

The past year has been a challenge for me because I have been working as well as taking care of my newborn daughter.

During this period, me and my team have been working on two main activities. First, the implementation of the personal data protection program, and the second project was the organisational risk matrix management.

Regarding the first project (personal data protection program), we have received many instructions from Mitsubishi headquarters in order to implement several documents related to this program. In this case, we have worked with our external advisor (ECIJA GPA) law firm in the process of mapping all data, analysing gaps, measuring risks, implementing documents, changing internal policies, creating new policies and displaying all the required information to third parties.

The project allowed us to connect with all the areas of the company through the creation of personal data delegates in each department and understanding the way they manage this data.

In the second project (management of the organisational risk matrix), the risk management assistant and I have been working on the action plans for each identified risk along with the leader of the process where the risk is identified. In 2022, COHECO obtained three ISO certifications in 9001, 14001 and 45001 international regulations. In this regard, one of the most important items to create and manage was the organisational risk matrix. During 2023, we have measured the efficiency of the action plans and worked in other activities for mitigating these risks in the company.

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?

Choosing external lawyers or law firms is one of the most challenging activities of a corporate lawyer. Personally, I had good and bad experiences with external advisors due to many aspects; however, it is very gratifying when I have found the correct ones, that align not only with the needs, the time, and the cost that the company requires but also with the integrity and the compliance procedures we have. Two years ago, I found ECIJA GPA and since then, we are partners in all the legal field and in the ethics field as well.

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

For in-house lawyers it is important to manage both the academic knowledge and the emotional knowledge. Is always important to take a side. Ambiguity cannot be part of the in-house lawyer behaviour.

With the aforementioned, and acting always with integrity, the in-house lawyer gains trust between the partners and the management achieving strong relationships so they can collaborate together.

Sometimes the tone has to rise and sometimes it has to decrease according to the situations that is why emotional intelligence is extremely important nowadays.

If existent, can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally friendly activities?

As mentioned before, COHECO has obtained the 14001 ISO certification and with this, many activities and procedures have started to be implemented. In this regard, the legal department has worked in the creation and management of the legal requirements matrix for environment, obtaining waste management certification and several other activities related to environmental care.