We have been holding weekly checkup meetings to discuss legislation updates in all the countries we operate. Being a clinical laboratory present in several jurisdictions, we have been impacted by legislation in multiple aspects — tests, labour, taxes, and vaccination. In response to that, we relied upon technological innovation by introducing contract management platforms, given the copious amount of documents. We instituted an eLearning platform for compliance and anti-corruption training that was done mostly through Zoom or Teams in the past. Our ESG strategy aims to reduce paper by creating internal processes for electric signatures and online control procedures.

We have mainly been involved in M&A transactions in Ecuador and México recently. The year 2021 was crucial for Synlab inorganic strategy. We managed to access the Mexican market with the acquisition of Laser —a reference clinical laboratory; and Medical Sur Laboratories, which holds Laboratorios Médicos Polanco and Laboratorios Ruiz, located in México City and Puebla. Another remarkable activity our team has been greatly involved in concerns implementing group data protection and information security policies.

Latin America is constantly growing, especially providing lots of opportunities for private equity expansion. Companies worldwide are looking at Latin America as an excellent place to do business. In-house counsel have a crucial role in the developments as they participate in negotiations and risk assessment. The scope of internal lawyers has been growing in the last few years. They have become specialists for the business they advise; therefore, they must develop competencies beyond legislation knowledge and know the business and the company.