About

Sergio Ricardo Salmi has over 15 years’ in-house experience in the Argentine finance sector, initially at Consolidar, BBVA’s insurance division; and since 2010, as general counsel at Banco Itaú’s Argentine subsidiary, where he leads a dozen-strong team. Since his arrival he has overhauled the structure of the legal department in its entirety, creating three legal directors (under his direct supervision), so as to provide an immediate point of contact for both internal and external clients with regard to specific legal requirements. This, along with the instilling of a more pro-active stance vis-a-vis the potential contingencies of the banks business, has resulted not only in efficiencies but also a considerable, and positive, shift in how the legal department is perceived by its internal clients. These innovations have been accompanied by educational and professional opportunities to further incentivize the members of the legal team. Given the ‘particularly intense juridical and regulatory environment’ in Argentina, a number of Salmi’s most notable achievements have come as a result of the robust defence of the companies for which he has worked in contentious administrative matters. Among other precedents, he and his team obtained a ruling declaring the unconstitutionality of Decree No.78/94 (concerning social security matters relating to Special Regimes (Regímenes Especiales), a decision that required the national social security body, ANSES, to modify its criteria; and a favourable supreme court judgement regarding the inadmissibility of an opinion by a tax authority (AFIP) commission in relation to pension fund administrators (AFJPs) and the constitutionality of a specific tax. And if Salmi ‘regards it as enriching to be able, in my position, to intervene in or opine on matters of the most diverse nature’, then there is little doubt he has confronted some notable challenges, including the Argentine government’s nationalization of private pension funds in 2008 (when, in his former position, he was the figure legally responsible for one such pension fund); and more recently, in his present post, the practical challenge constituted by a co-branding deal between Banco Itaú and Movistar.