Team size: Five

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Leaving aside some highly sophisticated legal tech advances, the most important trends impacting our work are document automation and contract management systems. Most of our teams now use these tools in their daily work. There are many software products specifically designed for this purpose and most in-house lawyers have chosen document automation tools as a starting point of their technology adoption cycle. Contract drafting usually takes a lot of time and some applications could make the process of contract preparation much more efficient.

Besides, the Covid era and the new online communication systems (Zoom, Teams) have left two important legacies: videoconferencing, which will survive the pandemic and continue to be used with professional teams and clients; and working remotely, which has shown many advantages as a part time working method in our industry.

There are other advances (massive data analytics, data management and more) that are slowly being integrated into different areas of business, but they still need some time to become as familiar as the aforementioned ones.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected the company and the team’s priorities?

Environmental and sustainability metrics are necessary in the worldwide listed companies as well as in the chemical industry. Every day governments, investors, clients, and other stakeholders demand a firm commitment in these areas not only as a general statement but also as measurable KPIs to be included in the agreements and other arrangements they enter. For legal teams, sustainability triggers two major zones of concern: compliance and implementation and development of the company´s sustainability strategy. As to compliance, it is part of our duty to watch that all applicable regulations within this field are observed. Regarding the strategy, we are also key players in fostering the dissemination of the corporate sustainability and environmental culture both in-house and in our relationships with third parties.

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

The most meaningful project we are involved in is named “Simplifying“, which is addressed, among other goals, to concentrate and reduce the number of companies within our group, aiming to cut administrative costs and intragroup transactions. This project is being implemented upon 3 basic pillars: sale of companies and businesses that are no longer core for the Group; amalgamation of different companies into one when there is no legal or business reason that prevents proceeding that way; and winding up non-operating companies and businesses. This process, which we are currently implementing worldwide, is a challenge for the in-house legal community because it means to put into practice a complex combination of multijurisdictional M&A deals.