About

In 2017, Volkswagen Financial Services separated the Volkswagen Bank from the Volkswagen Financial Services organisation. This project was a highly demanding project from a legal and compliance perspective for the legal team, and was conducted internationally and led by head of legal and compliance department Patrícia Mendes. ‘In nine months we achieved the aimed reorganisation. The timeline was very tight, and we faced the challenge that the legal environment in Portugal differed from the German one on certain matters, such as taxation, and thus we had to discuss (with headquarters) changes to the structure proposed by this international project’, says Mendes. The legal and compliance legal team is composed of four lawyers, three internal, and one external, who will be required to assist in the second phase of this project, where know-how and expertise in M&A, tax laws, corporate laws, financing laws and transfer prices are required. In order to assist on these projects, the legal and compliance team actively cooperates with other parts of the business. ‘The legal and compliance team emits a culture of cooperation and collaboration within the department and with the other departments, and always seeks for solutions to support the business, always fitting legal and compliance grounds’, says Mendes. As a testament to its success, over the years the team has received ample recognition in the region, being selected as the Portugal team of the year in an industry publication, and has been deemed as ‘business orientated, supportive and trustworthy’, by an internal customer services report.