About

Cinépolis is a major movie theatre chain across Mexico with a large presence in Latin America and an ever expanding portfolio in new markets such as the Middle East. The company boasts an expert in-house legal team of 40 lawyers worldwide, with the majority based in Mexico, and is led by general counsel Pablo Aguilar Albo. The team includes seven lawyers directly reporting to Albo and serving as leaders in their respective fields: Jorge Archundia Martínez in commercial agreements; Abraham Rodríguez in real estate; Edmundo Rivero in litigation and regulatory; Max Medrano in labour law; David Viveros Vázquez in compliance; Marisol Palomares in international corporate matters; Eduardo Campuzano García for domestic corporate matters. Recently, Cinépolis has heavily reinforced its compliance department, taken over labour matters and added local lawyers to the team in certain jurisdictions where it was previously missing internal local counsel. According to a nominator, the team is ‘still building on prior success, [and] Cinépolis has continued to expand its worldwide reach within its core business and is now diversifying into alternative support business ventures locally and abroad. The legal department, while continuing to be lean, has managed to oversee all such expansions successfully and have also been a trusted advisor to the controlling family and the company through difficult times. Cinépolis is now a quintessential global company’. The team has been very active in M&A transactions, not only in countries where it already had operations, but in the last two years it has successfully closed M&A deals to enter into territories that are new to Cinépolis (mainly, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Argentina). The team has also been involved in sophisticated financing transactions. Finally, it won a very complex and almost eight-year long trial related to the exhibition and distribution of the documentary “Presunto Culpable”, which was definitively resolved by Mexico’s Supreme Court. This was a landmark case for human rights and freedom of speech in Mexico. Aguilar identifies that the team’s motto is to ‘get things done and do them right’. He says: ‘We see our legal department as a facilitator, not a brick wall putting obstacles to our commercial teams; we need to find answers to their problems, not give them more complications. We are a very hands-on team that get very involved in all our businesses, are efficient and always observant of our company and stakeholder’s reputation and ethics’.