What are the most significant cases and/or transactions in which your legal team has recently been involved?

Some examples of the most significant cases and transactions that my team have handled included: (i) drafting contracts with suppliers, business partners and customers to implement the ‘DNI account’ – a 100 percent digital bank account which allowed almost 2 million Peruvians to have bank accounts in less than a month with the vision to include all Peruvian citizens in the country’s financial system over the next two years; (ii) managing legal aspects of the largest payment process in the history of Peru – delivering massive sums of money to more than 15 million people who are in extremely poverty through the Banco de la Nación service channels over the pandemic; (iii) undertaking the bank’s face-to-face service expansion process by increasing connectivity to internet networks – 94.5% of Banco de la Nación’s branches have been involved in this process and the bank became the largest network of service channels in Peru; (iv) managing legal aspects of Banco de la Nación’s capitalisation for an additional 400 million soles – strengthening its assets and growing its operational power.

How do you think the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the role of general counsel?

The pandemic allowed both internal and external lawyers to perform their tasks remotely at all levels. Having increased more flexibility, our team managed to perform more efficiently for the development of projects. Remote work also helped for our colleagues to have better work-life balance with the increasing flexibility on their work hour management. What are some of the key developments (legal, geopolitical or otherwise) that have affected your business over the last year? Some examples of the key developments that have affected the legal and business function of Banco de la Nación included: (i) the new regulations have been introduced to help the performance of remote-worker in the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic; (ii) the war between Russia and Ukraine caused a shortage of products and a significant rise in the price of gasoline and other commodities.

Looking ahead, what technological advances do you think will have a greater impact on the role of in-house legal teams in the future?

Some examples of the technological advancements that will have greater impacts on the role of in-house legal functions in the future included: (i) development of artificial intelligence; (ii) widespread of blockchain technology in the legal industry; (iii) international contract drafting technology; (iv) specialised legal tech in different area of practice.