What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have recently been involved in? 

ADL Digital Lab (ADL) is the first multi-entity digital laboratory in Latin America and the innovation and digitalisation company of the largest financial group in Colombia, Grupo Aval’s Financial Conglomerate (Grupo Aval), which, among others, includes four traditional banks (Banco de Bogotá, Banco de Occidente, Banco Popular and Banco AV Villas), a financial corporation (Corficolombiana), a company specialized in deposits and electronic payments (Dale), four trust companies (Fiduciaria Bogotá, Fiduciaria de Occidente, Fiduciaria Popular and Fiduciaria Corficolombiana), and a pension and severance funds’ management company (Porvenir), all of them located in Colombia, and several financial institutions in Central America. 

As such, ADL strengthens the digital transformation processes of Grupo Aval’s entities, digitising their products, channels and processes to achieve operational efficiencies, provides them with digital marketing, cloud and data services, and designs and recommends innovative products to the benefit of Grupo Aval’s entities. ADL is also the holding company of the digital ecosystems of the group, these are, the mobility ecosystem (Carroya.com and Facilpass), the housing ecosystem (Metrocuadrado com) and the insurance ecosystem (Seguros ADL), all of which seek to provide a broad portfolio of financial services to its customers into end-to-end digital experience. 

During the last year, ADL strengthened the mobility ecosystem indirectly acquiring Peajes Electrónicos – Facilpass  (“Facilpass”), a company that provides technological solutions for the electronic payment of tolls, through its wholly owned subsidiary Carroya.com. Considering that ADL renders administrative and legal services to its subsidiaries, ADL’s legal team performed the due diligence process of Facilpass and drafted and negotiated the sale and purchase agreement, which were entirely managed in-house. It is worth mentioning that, although Facilpass was sold by two Corficolombiana’s subsidiaries, part of Grupo Aval, the due diligence and the terms’ negotiation processes were performed at arm’s length conditions. 

In addition to Facilpass’ acquisition, as per the group’s decision, in December 2023, ADL assumed the management and operation of TuPlús, Grupo Aval’s loyalty programme, which also implied a due diligence process and a complex negotiation with the four banks and A Toda Hora, the company that used to operate the programme. 

Which recent political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted your work the most in recent years?   

During 2023 and the beginning of 2024, two important regulatory initiatives related to the provision of financial services were developed in Colombia, the Immediate Payments System Resolution, issued by the Colombian Central Bank on October 31, 2023, and the Open Finance Circular (Executive Order) issued by the Colombian Financial Superintendence on February 7, 2024.   

Accordingly, these regulatory changes have impacted my team’s work in the sense that we have had to focus an important part of our work on regulatory review and more interestingly, to support the company to take Grupo Aval to the next level. 

How do you motivate and manage your legal team well? 

Leading my team by example with honesty, respect and loyalty towards all its members and supporting the career path of each of them. Additionally, showing the importance of teamwork, especially the value of legal discussions where we openly share our views with the aim of reaching the best possible legal advice for ADL, for the benefit of the business and for Grupo Aval’ growth. 

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed?   

Artificial intelligence is a reality and that has been clear in the past year, in which AI went from being a conversation hot topic to a tool used by society. And while this is happening, it has been widely said that AI will be able to perform the work of many professionals, including lawyers, and that that will result in important job displacements, which many have declared catastrophic in the legal profession as it involves repetitive tasks, such as minutes’ drafting, legal research, contracts review, among others. 

Nonetheless, the immersion of AI in business, especially in the legal profession, is only starting. Consequently, it is very premature to know if AI will truly have the potential to replace professionals as it is expected. In any case, it is clear that AI, particularly generative AI, will play an important role in law firms and corporate legal departments as it will definitely positively impact efficiency regarding routinary tasks that may be automated (keeping a close oversight over AI’s work), giving us time to support our clients’ or the company’s strategy, using what we is our most valuable ability, this is, our legal judgement skill.