About

Madrid-headquartered Grupo Pullmantur is Spain’s largest cruise operator and has additional business lines in air travel and bus tours. The legal department, led by general counsel and company secretary Javier Somoza, oversees matters at Pullmantur’s Spanish headquarters and across its many registered legal entities in other jurisdictions, including France, Colombia and Mexico. The wide-ranging activities of the company create a heavy compliance burden for Somoza and his team, and nominators pointed to the important role of the legal team in protecting the company and commented on the ‘very strong foundations for successful commercial operations which the legal unit provides’. The legal team processes a large number of matters each year – mostly small-scale employment, intellectual property and consumer claims generated by its day-to-day operations. Finding new and innovative ways to manage this workload and reduce costs has, says one nominator, been one of the team’s standout achievements. Last year ownership of the company was transferred to a new joint venture between Royal Caribbean – which Pullmantur has been a subsidiary of since 2006 – and Spanish private equity firm Springwater Capital.