About

Formerly trading as Telemar, Oi is one of Brazil’s largest companies, and one of the largest telecommunications companies in South America in terms of both subscribers and revenues. Undergoing several structural changes mean the legal challenges Antonio Rabelo Filho and his team will be dealing with are important, interesting and crucial to the company’s health going forward. In charge of a team of 16, Filho came to Oi with a host of experience of leadership and legal expertise in the financial sector, gained most notably at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In utilising this experience, Filho is keen on seeing his legal department as one that is constantly innovating, he states that their approach should ‘reinvent our tasks and way of working, not to become a commodity service. In order to achieve that, it´s necessary to know client and company business in all of its complexity and give tailor made responses’. Examples of this include Filho and his team producing noticeable and quantifiable differences to the company coffers, achieving more than R$2.5bn on cash and operational results. Filho can also point to a number of highlights during his in-house career; ‘we act on all major M&A deals, including the split of companies; selling of telecommunication Assets, buying of Brasil Telecom in 2009 and merging with Portugal Telecom in 2014’. In working with outside counsel, Filho stresses the need for lawyers operating in Brazil to be aware of Brazil’s ‘legal complexity, external and internal tax lawyers in to think outside the box’. A key member of the business in this capacity, Filho enjoys being a driver in Oi’s strategy as he is a part of all strategic decisions and can choose a wide range of options to reduce tax duty on the company.