About

JLL, a US-headquartered real estate professional services and investment management company, has been established in Mexico since the early 1990s. The Mexican legal team, headed by chief legal counsel for Mexico Agustin Ballina, is made up of six members who have recently introduced several initiatives and improvements to strategic vision and execution. While Ballina interacts closely with the global general counsel and senior management, the other team members support specific business lines – ‘for which they are in constant contact and communication with the respective managers and directors of those areas’, according to Ballina. With team members like Isaac Shefer – who is ‘client-oriented and always seeking to improve and proposing new initiatives’ – and Fernando Buenrostro – who is described as ’efficient with a great focus on details and constantly studying’ – the department has initiated a number of changes recently. Internally the team has developed a software tool to automate the control and follow up of matters to the legal area, such as producing detailed reports of matters, sending reminders and managing documents through a digital file with restricted access exclusively for the legal area. As well as creating almost 50 standard agreement templates, the department has carried out an ethics and compliance campaign, which has since been adopted globally throughout JLL, and created internal guidelines to ensure the compliance of local applicable laws. Due to high levels of risk in the Mexican real estate sector, the department has provided training to business areas, produced information campaigns, increased due diligence to all vendors, obtained FCPA certifications and developed standard clauses to the company. As the team currently supports business counterparts during negotiations for new projects, Ballina says that legal is able ‘to contribute on the structuring and execution. The legal department has become an integral part of the business area, and not only a part of the back office services. We are also in continuous training with different areas, to ensure the fulfilment of our internal policies as well as the applicable regulation’.