What are the most significant cases or transactions you and your team have been involved in?

It is important to clarify the structure of the company’s legal department, in order to provide an exhaustive answer to the question. ANA is the largest operating airports in Portugal. Its legal affair department is dived into three principal areas – concession contracts and economic regulation, procurement, and general area. I supervise the general area, therefore the main cases and transaction I have been involved in are linked to general activities. In 2021, we have been doing significant work aimed at adapting licenses in the airport – activities performed in the airport are subject to licences, and due to the pandemic, they all had to be re-assessed and re-adapted. They also involved a commercial side, and conditions had to be discussed between the commercial undertakings. The legal aspects, had to be negotiated and accepted by the parties – my company, the airport operators, those who have airlines stores, and ground handling agents – they all had to reformulate the authorisation they held previously. I was responsible for the coordination of legal issues, and it required lots of focus from my side. However, my team and I have been able to secure a duty-free tender store in the Portuguese airport. It involved complicated negotiations and procedures – which is what makes it such an important milestone. In February of the same year, I collaborated with our law firm to settle a communication to the Portuguese Competition Authority because of a concentration operation, related with the duty-free tender.

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

Technological advancements will hopefully speed up processes and make them more efficient. In my specific industry, we still rely on long administrative processes; we are usually involved in lots of litigations based on complicated bureaucracy. Technological tools are available to make procedures smoother and faster, in a transparent manner. We worked at the implementation of digital tools between 2020 and 2021 – we revised all the legal documents and licenses required and these innovations have shown to be quite positive.

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

We are deeply concerned about climate change. I am immensely proud of the ability of the company to develop an environmental policy, and its continuous commitment to environmental initiatives. Recently, we have been preparing our airports to become self-sufficient in terms of energy. In 2021, I have been greatly involved in contractual matters concerning the preparation of procedures aimed at the construction and production of energy within the airports premise. Particularly, we have been working with solar energy, through the deployment of solar panels.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

They can build trust by learning business acumen of the company while supporting them with their flexible approach on business growth. To help the company progress, in-house counsel have to accept the right level of risk.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

We learnt to build personal as well as professional relationships online; trust remains the same, but more flexibilities are allowed in terms of online contracts, e-signatures, processing of data, and better use of online tools. Flexibility became key to combat against challenges came with the pandemic: becoming experts in suspending but not terminating contracts; justifying the interruption of the supply of products due to the crisis while finding a way to avoid liability; changing the conditions of agreements to restore contractual balance due to the consecutive crisis.