Team size: Four
Major legal advisers: Garrigues, Vieira de Almeida

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

Increasing workloads and tight budgets encouraged in-house lawyers to find solutions in legal technology. The use of new technologies improved workflows for the company’s operation by identifying recurring business problems and creating long-term solutions for the business. In-house lawyers must be able to find the right solutions for their organisations by creating efficient decision-making process and providing clear legal guidance for business operation. Legal tech helps to manage budget and risk controls, providing analysis on risk anticipation and remediation including litigation and arbitration. In-house legal team is involved in improving management, work allocation, metric measurement, and the board and senior leadership by providing valuable advice to the company.

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

In-house lawyers should be aware of corporate trends and risks to support the executive committee for their investment and capability analysis. They need to be seen as a part of the company cooperating with other functions to solve problems together instead of working separately as an independent function. To do that, in-house legal teams must understand how business operates in the organisation, including commercial and project management, executive support, the purpose, and value of business (products, services, and clients), to help each business effectively reach their goals. Overall, in-house lawyers should be true advisors, framing things in a way that make sense to the business, pointing out concerns or potential issues, not blocking progress but finding a way through problems.

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

The major transactions that our team was involved in over the last two years are as follows: (i) sale of the GTE business to Vinci Energies Portugal SGPS SA for €36m in 2020; (ii) sale of COLLAB Business to Volaris Group for €6m in 2020; (iii) training the companies in the group for GDPR compliance since 2017;(iv) enforcement of policies on anti-bribery and fraud in the group companies based on the relevant EU Directives.

We are currently challenged with new waves of business operation in the company; constant mutation of regulatory frameworks reduced our creativity in legal making of contracts. Our legal team are under pressure to suggest innovative legal solutions to support the company’s evolving business in the areas of financial services, Telecommunications, and IT Contracting/outsourcing.