About

The business of global money transferring services brings with it inherent risk, a requirement to think globally and a need for high levels of technical expertise. Able to understand these issues as well as being a truly business focussed decision making legal function, the Italy-based legal team at MoneyGram International, the second largest provider of money transfers in the world, is highly praised for their output under senior legal counsel for Southern Europe Andrea Brancatelli. Located in Rome but with a remit that extends all the way through 19 countries across the Southern European region, Brancatelli explains that the large amount of countries the team covers means they must manage the Southern Europe region ‘with a general overview without losing focus on any single country or countries’. Their work is explained as providing ‘general legal guidelines, keeping track of various topics and working closely with outside counsel in each country’, which has allowed to the team to make several tangible impacts to the business including the prevention of a particularly costly litigation in the USA that was settled under ‘extremely favourable’ conditions for the business. As is expected for a company that utilises technology within the financial services industry, the team work with an innovative streak that was particularly evident during the creation of what Brancatelli calls ‘unique corporate criminal compliance policies in various jurisdictions and for various legal entities’, and also in significant cases where the team obtained registration as a payment institution in Turkey and entered into an ‘innovative agent agreement’ with a bank in Romania. Recent political events, namely Britain’s impending exit from the European Union, will provide fresh challenges for the team and Brancatelli refers to the work to be done regarding the passporting of a new EU licence as amongst the most important things for the legal team to deal with in the coming months, further showing the team’s excellent business sense and technical competence with regards to all applicable financial legal and compliance matters.