About

Legal manager Christian Castro Agudelo leads Hocol’s in-house team which is comprised of five lawyers and an intern each specialised in different areas to supply thorough legal advice services to the company. He is supported by Carlos Vásquez who works closely with the exploration and production department’s vice presidents, and supports Hocol’s core business and new ventures. Bibiana Pachón, a lawyer and policy specialist, provides legal support regarding environmental, labour and social issues aiming to maintain a proper interaction with Hocol’s stakeholders. Additionally, she advises on midstream matters related to crude oil transportation and trading. They are joined by Juan Camilo Gómez, whose role in the legal team is to advise the gas department, focusing on legal regulation analysis and the negotiation of gas contracts with partners and clients, as well as tax litigation and legal advisory. Finally, Manuel Barreto advises on matters related to procurement by drafting and negotiating the required contracts for the many different purposes of the company. Recently, the team worked on the crossed transfer of assets between Hocol and Ecopetrol engaging in negotiations towards transferring approximately 15 assets as part of the strategy of Hocol’s ultimate parent company. The entire legal process was managed by the in-house team at Hocol. Additionally, Hocol obtained a favourable judicial decision in a case related to an unconstitutional referendum aiming to ban extractive activities in the municipality of Ortega, Tolima. Castro Agudelo highlights that, ‘as a high performance legal team our main premise is that “no lawyer will know our company better than we do”. Another trait of our team is to privilege the core business making things legally viable’.