How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?  

Legal aspects are even more relevant in crisis periods therefore making sure there is compliance with legal requirements already concretely improves the crisis. Legal should drive the business strategy, together with other stakeholders, to make sure the organisation is compliant with the rules, ready to react and resilient during the crisis. Ensuring the organisation’s resilience is now also a mandatory skill for all inhouse lawyers given the newly issued EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (“DORA”) that will become effective in January 2025 and that imposes on organizations many new resilience requirements. 

What are the main cases or transactions that you have been involved in recently?  

As assistant general counsel for MoneyGram in Europe I have followed the transition of the money transfer business from traditional cash to more digital services, including allowing customers to send via digital methods of payment. In the money transfer sector, Europe has traditionally cash-based business. However, the environment is changing rapidly, especially after covid, therefore MoneyGram has adapted to such change building more digital partnerships. The legal department has been involved in such digital transitions by means of: (i) reviewing the legal requirements of the new products; (ii) aligning the new digital products with the existing regulatory licenses; (iii) building new contractual structures for such digital services. In parallel the legal department, as part of the digital evolution, started using the new technologies in its daily work through the introduction of AI tools which enhanced the legal capabilities.    

How have you integrated technology into your legal processes, and what impact has this had on efficiency and compliance?  

Technology has been integrated in phases into our legal processes by means of, initially, leveraging AI for translations and, subsequently, using AI tools for more complex tasks such as document review or legal research. Technology was integrated mainly with off-the-shelf solutions while we are currently evaluating more tailored solutions. Efficiency has improved with the use of technology with respect to reducing manual work or cutting costs on third party providers, which were used in the past more frequently. Additionally, the compliance department uses technology for its AML verifications, and this is for sure a strong asset given the amount of data that MoneyGram processes. 

What do you see as the major legal challenges for businesses in Italy over the next five years, and how are you preparing to address them?  

The payment sector in Italy is undergoing a substantial regulatory change in the coming years. From an EU perspective there are: (a) PSD3 that is coming up, by way of amending the current Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on Payments Services Directive (so called PSD2) and is expected to be approved by the EU Council after the Summer and; (b) EU AML Package that is an ambitious Anti Money Laundering reform, which has already been published on the EU Gazette mid-June 2024 and is composed of three pillars: (i) the creation a new EU-level Anti-Money Laundering Authority (so called “AMLA”); (ii) the issuance of a new EU single rule book for AML and CFT and; (iii) amendments to the previous AML Directives (i.e. AMLD3/4/5) by means of the newly issued AMLD6 .  

All such EU measures will heavily impact the Italian payment sector and will need to be incorporated into local laws with new obligations for Italian businesses. In addition, the many Italian payment businesses operating in the crypto field will need to comply with the Market in Crypto Asset Regulation (so called MiCA) which has been already implemented in Italy through a dedicated Ministerial Decree issued end of June 2024.  

In summary, the regulatory changes are numerous, substantial and happening almost all at the same time, therefore, may be considered major legal challenges for the Italian business and their legal departments. The best way to prepare to address such changes is to follow the legislative process (from the start) launch implementing operations process (once the law is passed) and make sure that future company products/services already take into consideration the impacts of upcoming new laws. Only with robust monitoring process and effective project management the challenge of remaining in compliance with so many new laws and obligations be duly prepared and achieved.