About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

The legal team is divided in two main areas.

Business affairs, headed by Filipe Borges, senior business and legal affairs manager, covers all negotiation, agreements, documents, and works on issues related to copyright, use of images and any other need for production, coproduction, licenses, etc. The business affairs area mainly supports the content areas for Discovery Networks Brasil.

The other area is legal corporate, headed by Tiago Sayao, legal manager, and covers all regulatory, distribution, digital, minors, data privacy, consumer, labour, tax, corporate, anti-trust and any other matter of the company.

In general, the legal and business affairs team for Brazil work for the development of the Discovery business in Brazil.

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years?

The team is highly skilled in media, entertainment, and business law and has deep knowledge of intellectual property and regulation matters, which enables them to suggest innovative business models and lead negotiations.

Our “product” is the delivery of programmes to our audience through our television channels or any media platform, which involves the negotiation and acquisition of all sorts of rights and copyrights (commissions, acquisitions, licensing, talent deals, development deals, all types of copyrights contained in a programme production). Since 2014, Discovery Networks Brasil has substantially grown its total hours of original production, increasing the amount of deals and adding additional complexity, driven by the different business models that were adopted in Brazil. This achievement counted on the team’s full participation and partnering with all other teams in Brazil. From a regulatory standpoint, the team has being key to strategise business models to the company investments.

How important have “soft skills” or personal attributes outside of technical legal skill been to the team’s success, and which “soft skills” do you feel are most important for an in-house lawyer to possess?

Soft skills are critical to our activities. The legal team interacts with all other groups within the company, notably content, HR, management, sales, distribution, finance, among others, on a daily basis, so it’s key for us to maintain a good and healthy relationship with all areas. Among the main skills I’d mention are good communication, positive attitude, team work, work ethics, accountability and adaptability.

How can in-house legal teams be an integral part of their firm’s business? How does the legal team demonstrate its value to the company?

The legal team is an integral part of the business since we can provide a mix of strong ability to commercial awareness, creativity and legal knowledge. Our team not only provides legal advice to all areas, but also suggest and participate on the elaboration of business plans and creative ideas. We understand the legal team not just as a support area but as a key player to develop the business in Brazil through the advice in all strategic matters and decision making.

Does the team use any “legal tech” products and do you find them a helpful management device?

The team work with software to simple agreements, management of budget and department and a variety of other bureaucratic items to use IT tools allow the team to use the time to engage in strategic subjects.

Is diversity and inclusion as a matter of internal policy on the agenda at your company? How much influence do you, as an in-house legal team, have on the D&I policies of your organisation?

Both diversity and inclusion are key for the company and part of the company’s principles. We influence due to the compliance of the law in Brazil and also by example. The legal department has been very diversified over the years.

What political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted the company and the team the most recently?

The economy and the regulatory landscape do have a high impact on the team and business models. In Brazil, where the regulatory environment is particular and complicated, it requires full focus and attention, and the team has been strategic thinker with regards to how to help our business grow locally despite a very regulated market.