What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Scotiabank Chile, as of January 2023, formed a parity board of directors, becoming the first private bank in Chile to have one. The bank’s legal team had to coordinate all the corporate governance activities necessary to achieve this, including the holding of the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting, which reduced the board of directors from eleven members and two alternate members to seven members and one alternate member, which was made up of four women and four men.

The challenge that the bank set itself was to hold the first meeting, at which the board was set up, in January 2023, which meant obtaining regulatory approvals in a very short term after the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held in November 2022. The process, although it seems simple, involves team support and hard work with no mistakes in a clean legal process, in the identification of the candidates, their subsequent interview and subsequent immersion to the board, compliance with the regulatory requirements and that there are no impediments to their participation.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

Corporate values correspond to the philosophical essence that must be followed by the members of a team who work together and support each other. Therefore, it is very important to have external lawyers who are aligned with the organization’s corporate values, since they are key partners to create value in the company and for our clients. In this sense, if a firm does not support the values of the company, at one point it will not add value and that is a risk that the company cannot take.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

Digital transformation is a crucial part of the legal agenda. Business strategies have undergone this transformation quickly, as well as organisational changes, all of which entail new business structures, new professional profiles and working relationships such as remote work. In the legal role, this means making efforts to support changes. In our case, in addition to supporting digital sales, it has meant introducing digital legal services that were previously one hundred percent manual, as well as issuing legal reports, responses to requirements of courts and regulators, the ability to digitally distribute collection claims and process them until they are notified; are just a few examples of everything we can do.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

In-house lawyers are well positioned to guide change. They have evolved with the business and adapted to new and different kind of business strategies, when it has become necessary to do so. At the same time, the regulatory changes we are experiencing in current days require their intervention and proactive participation to be catalysts, from the legal perspective of the different projects that these changes originate.