About

The American real estate investment management and professional services company JLL dates its presence in Brazil back to 1996, when it opened its first office in the country. Today, the office houses a strong and multidisciplinary legal team that oversees and conducts negotiations for large corporate transactions undertaken by the company. Headed by legal and compliance director Gustavo Biagioli, the department ensures effective legal support to the business and facilitates full compliance with all applicable laws, regulations and company policies, protecting and enhancing the reputation of the company and contributing to strategic growth initiatives. Made up of six lawyers and an administrative assistant, Biagioli states the team has operated amidst a corporate environment affected by increased compliance scrutiny: ‘the biggest recent change [for the team] was the strengthening of compliance practices and focusing on our integrity program that is a reference for the global market’. He adds that in 2016 the team won the “Pro-Ethics Seal”, the ‘most respected national certification of integrity’. Recognising the importance of close interaction between legal and business peers, the team has ‘prioritised the improvement of communication’ and proactively seeking out knowledge with reference to wider business aspects through several initiatives. The team has been involved in ‘recurring meetings, understanding difficulties, opening the minds of colleagues on the need to accept risk as an element of the business, working on solutions that make business feasible, investing time in risk mitigation, leading cases involving multidisciplinary teams and creating simple but effective templates and policies that enable business to be carried out with governance’. Key to all the company’s transactions and a participant in ‘all phases’ from ‘transition, negotiation, signing of contracts, implementation and throughout the term of the contract’. Biagioli describe an instance where the team conducted an administrative proceeding resulting from assessments of a client to ‘obtain a significant reduction of debt by negotiating a settlement’. This involved the review of the ‘relationship manual with the press, establishing rules to be followed by employees when they are in crisis situations and providing all clarifications until the public prosecutor decided to dismiss the charges’. Highlighting particularly outstanding members of the team, Biagioli cites Aline Leme, a ‘key person’ within the team, who helped develop the communication strategy of the department and leads ‘high impact initiatives’ and Tatiana Maillefaud who helped to ‘expand the sales force and win new projects with legal certainty, and assisted with the execution and registration of the Associated Broker Agreement she developed’. Biagioli also mentions the work of Heron Lacerda, who was involved with a ‘concierge portal for condominiums, the tax reduction strategies for clients, and other initiatives that focus on bringing profitability to the business unit, which has been a high impact in terms of the concept that the legal area also must be seen as a revenue generating unit instead of a cost centre only’.