About

An award-winning corporate counsel, with expertise in public and administrative law, Iberdrola’s director of global legal services for energy management and commercial, Andrés Campaña Avila is an increasingly respected voice in the energy market. He started his career in 2000 as an associate in Cuatrecasas’ litigation department. In 2005 he joined Iberdrola in the role of gas unit legal director and one year later he assumed his current position, following some reorganisation within the company. Also part of the business legal committee, Campaña Avila has had the chance to contribute to the strategy planning of the legal team and to implement changes on the workings of the legal department within the scope of his responsibilities. Examples of his reforms include the introduction of an exhaustive potential risks assessment in order to put in place a compliance system and the implementation of the best practices programs, designed to share knowledge and experiences across the group legal teams. He held a central role in the defence of Iberdrola on several competition and regulatory punitive proceedings conducted by the Spanish Competition and Energy authorities, which have led to the annulment of fines approximated at €40m. The removal of regulated tariffs in 2009, due to the EU directives and national transposing regulations, posed many hurdles for the company. Campaña Avila advised the retail division on all aspects of liberalisation of the energy supply that led to the growth of its customer base from 200,000 to 11,000,000. Also vice secretary of the Iberdrola Generación España, S.A.U. board of directors, he enjoys a daily interaction with the senior management of the business advising on Spanish and wider European matters. In the early years of his practice, he managed the administrative law area of a website that provided free legal assistance to citizens. ‘I had my email available to readers and I was very happy to study and answer -free of charge, of course- questions from ordinary people who could not afford a law firm such as Cuatrecasas where I was working at the time’. Campaña Avila has published several articles on administrative law and has contributed one article for the book “Temas de Derecho Energético” (“Issues of Energy Law”) published by Editorial Bosch in 2009. Since 2008 he has also been a lecturer for the MA of energy law at the Club Español de la Energía (Spanish Club of Energy).