HSBC is the seventh largest bank in Argentina, it provides a full range of banking and financial products and services including consumer finance, insurance, investment and corporate banking to over 1.2 million customers. Strengthening HSBC’s various operations in Argentina is the local legal team, comprised of twenty five lawyers and seven administrative and risk management staff in the country. The team is led by the talented general counsel Pedro Frade who leads the legal function not only in HSBC Group for Argentina but also at HSBC Brazil – Investment Bank. As a lawyer qualified in Brazil with international experience in the UK, Frade counts on a wide range of Argentine senior lawyers as his colleagues.

Martin Vazquez is a highly recognized banking lawyer who actively participates in every relevant discussion with the industry and Julieta Arribas who has become an advocate of female leadership, devolving, besides her transactional profile, expertise in areas that are very relevant to the bank, such as financial crime compliance and data privacy. Both have worked in top law firms in Bueno Aires prior to joining HSBC and spent time in New York at magic circle firms acquiring international experience. In line with the global HSBC diversity agenda, Frade was the only Latin American leader listed in the Top 100 LGBT Outstanding Leaders list published by the Financial Times in October 2017. ‘Diversity is a hot topic to us’, states Frade, and it is to this end that they have worked hard to build a diverse and inclusive team who is also dedicated to pro bono work and volunteering, using their internal platform to influence employees to fight for a diverse and inclusive community.

On the most important changes to the team in recent years, Frade says, ‘After the significant shift of Argentina by the end of 2015 and the extensive package of statutory reforms, our main challenge has been to adapt the profile of the team to be on top of the new legal regulatory framework (enabling more sophisticated financial solutions and products), providing sound and forward-looking advice’. The team has also been tasked with providing visibility of the local legislative agenda to HSBC Group, globally, and how legal risk is being managed with a clear mandate to lawyers of playing a dual role, that is being partners of the business whilst also guardians of the franchise. This has been an area of success for the team with nominators appreciating that ‘[Frade] and his team handle a very difficult regulated scenario’. Finding opportunities to leverage from the group legal’s expertise, looking for efficiencies to manage the legal expenditure and prioritising strategic issues have been top issues of the teams’ agenda. ‘We have been influenced by the conduct agenda that requires that lawyers go beyond of [their legal role], and also consider what is right: delivering fair outcomes to clients and correspond to what society and regulators expect from us’, says Frade. Among the many notable projects the team has worked on, in 2017 HSBC was positioned as a number one bank in the public sector and local currency issuances, executing landmark transactions such as the US$2.75bn century bond for the Republic of Argentina, being the first 100 year bond in the Argentine market.