About

Continental, a multinational German automotive manufacturing company, has been active in Mexico since the 1990s. The Mexican legal team has become an important business partner of the company, highly integrated and able to determine how to work with a greater collaboration with other functions. Led by Luis Enríquez De Rivera Morales, general counsel and compliance officer for Mexico and Latin America (excluding Brazil), the team is run on a day-to-day basis by legal manager Fernanda Morales. The department has facilitated the successful closing of several projects for Continental in the recent past. The team has overseen M&A operations, plant expansions, the launching of several software developments and new business lines – such as ContiTread and Best Drive – the creation of new business structures, guarantee schemes and marketing special projects. Significantly, the department also restructured several of Continental’s subsidiary companies to the “maquila” scheme – a manufacturing operation where factories import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis and re-export value-add products. The team worked closely with Continental’s tax and finance departments to achieve the successful assignment of all supplier agreements as well as the creation of the maquila structure through agreements and the transfer of assets. When the parent company bought Veyance Technologies in 2015, for $1.9bn, the Mexico team restructured the new subsidiary’s operation in Mexico, including negotiations on lease and subleases, then purchase and asset of shares and finally maquila transformation and transfer of assets. As Continental runs 20 manufacturing plants and has over 23,000 employees in Mexico, the recent federal labour law which greatly advances employee rights has had a significant impact. Maria del Mar Cosio, the legal labour manager, has been commended for recently implementing labour strategies with unions and standardising benefits while also training the HR managers in legal labour matters to avoid lawsuits. Compliance officer Fabiola Carrillo has created a compliance department recently, to further safeguard the company against potential risks.