About

The Colombian legal department of the world’s leading inspection, verification and certification company SGS Group was founded in 2012 as a consequence of its first major acquisition made in the country. Over the last two years the efficiency of the five-person team headed by Diana Daza, has driven other business units to more proactively require the services of the department. In fact, the legal team currently provides advice on the affairs of the company not just in Colombia, but also throughout Central America and the Caribbean. ‘These situations have demanded better organic growth of the area and standards improvement’, Daza clarifies. Among an array of achievements, the team has received particular acclaim for its creation of a follow-up structure for the review of contracts, as well as the training conducted for internal businesses in legal matters. The team’s work on transactions and legal cases has also impressed, with its lawyers recently closing the acquisition of the most important lab for concrete testing in Colombia and Panama, managing to successfully settle the most critical contingency of the company due to an alleged professional breach and settling to receive the payment of rendered services from a public entity whose budget had previously expired. To effectively provide services to six operating companies, the legal team has created and assisted with the implementation of risk management and mitigation frameworks, based on current cases and learnt lessons from the past.