About

Describing themselves as a, ‘hard-working, committed team with an overarching view of international construction and arbitration law’, the core function of the Técnicas Reunidas legal department is to empower the business and its operations in these areas. To assist on that effort, the legal department comprises of three senior lawyers, and three associates that have the task to review, comment and negotiate all the bids or business transactions related to that line of business. In order to give legal and contractual support during critical execution stages, the legal department has built a mixed team of contract managers and lawyers. ‘It took us almost three years to create that interdisciplinary team, and the results are outstanding. Not only, the legal department is closer to the project problems as never before, but we are much more prepared to deal with conflicts, litigations and arbitrations when they are unavoidable’, says deputy legal director, Leandro Meneses. The high level of knowledge of the project allows the team to create very specific strategies for specific matters in the realms of conflict prevention. Almost half of the team started working together a decade ago, being hired specifically for their ability to work in contract management with a legal mind frame. ‘We managed to accommodate a seamless integration across the department, developing a cooperative spirit that instructs all our current organisation. Rather than structuring our team into different compartments or any other formal division, each of our members knows that they will be working in particular projects but all across its different phases and challenges’, explains Meneses. The legal team is currently advising on the execution of combined cycles, biomass plants and coal plants in different continents, working on multiple cases and transactions of significant importance. One of the most singular and challenging tasks taken on by the legal team is its contribution to an insolvency procedure in a Latin American country in a relatively short period. ‘In order to support the project and its success, we sat down with the project team to create an alternative procurement strategy on a fast-track, while managing the conflicts with the failed subcontractors at the same time’, explains Meneses. They have also received much praise from nominators: ‘The performance of the team has been outstanding always, not only from a legal perspective, but also a business oriented one. The team always appoints, as leader of the legal working group, an internal lawyer that had contacts when initiating the corresponding legal relationship. This allows a very swift development of any process. Their knowledge of construction law and arbitration, the two matters in which they work the most, is well above normal standards’.