About

Claudio Criscuolo is in charge of Italian multinational cement company Cementir Group’s legal, corporate and compliance matters involving domestic and international law, serving as the lead lawyer for group negotiations worldwide. Criscuolo took up this role in 2013 where he leads a 15-member legal team at the Rome headquarters as well as abroad in the Cementir affiliates. Due to Criscuolo, over the years, the legal team has been designed to serve as one legal department for the benefit of the entire group, with consistent service levels and where a few people are located in different countries, but constantly connected to others. ‘Our legal department has provided a robust backbone sustaining the group in a period of great change: combined with the personal efforts made into this and other M&A transactions managed in-house, we feel we have greatly contributed to make this long-term project come through, something which just few years ago seemed absolutely impossible’ says Criscuolo. Most recently, in 2018 he was central to the acquisition of an additional 38.75% interest in Lehigh White Cement Company, a partnership active in the production and distribution of white cement in the US and Canada for a US$106.6m consideration. Criscuolo takes pride in the fact that all acquisitions and the related financing arrangements have been entirely managed in-house, with a limited support from external counsels, ‘thanks to the ability of the legal department to operate in different jurisdictions at the same time and with consistent quality of the services provided’ concludes Criscuolo. Prior to this role he spent a large part of his career at leading Italian and American multinational automotive group Fiat Chrysler, in the capacity of deputy general counsel head of legal, corporate where he notably worked on the establishment of the strategic alliance between Fiat Group and Chrysler, their final formal merger into Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. During his time there he also worked on the termination of the joint venture between Fiat and General Motors in which the two groups’ strategic alliances had grown into one business entity present worldwide. The legal teams of both companies were tasked with reverse-engineering of the joint venture and their full set of legal relationships in just 90 days, a task that was ‘overwhelming in nature’ but finally accomplished without triggering any dispute resolution process of formal litigation.