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

There are some continuity operations here, renovations in various businesses, especially in terms of the sale of infrastructure. Basically, this infrastructure management market in Portugal has emerged very recently and has had a great impact on the communications market and NOS, specifically, has made a move in the area of ​​mobile telecommunications, clearly an interesting strategic option from a liquidity point of view. In essence, alienate these infrastructures and then be able to guarantee access to them. This process is complex and requires joint ventures with other operators that are present here, much in line with sharing. We had very strong deals, which are public, namely with Cellnex, a Spanish company, in the sale of numerous sites and antennas that support mobile networks, which occupied a lot of our time in the last year.
Additionally, in other relationship logics, we work with other entities linked to some operators, such as Altice and Vodafone, which also have their own infrastructure management. 

During this year, our strategy was very focused on expanding to new businesses, with NOS betting very heavily, which requires greater monitoring by the legal department, in expanding private security – alarms for homes and small businesses. This investment in this new business area has shown that NOS can remain a pioneer in different sectors, partnering with Securitas, adding its technological know-how to the security sector, together with our commercial positioning. 

Another interesting move was the opening of NOS Mediação de Seguros, providing our customers with greater insurance options related to their communications activity. Finally, we still have activities related to the end of the 5G auction, in which we have been monitoring these developments, especially its entry into the market and the challenges this has brought us. 

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change within their organisations? 

I’ve been leading the legal department at NOS since January 2021, but having been with the company for 10 years, I’ve always been given a very strong brand by my former leadership, related to an image not only of support and consultancy for the business, but without fear of giving an opinion on the executive strategy and always being present in moments of decision. Deep down, I have to respond to the public and not just within my area, which implies valuing our work in a different way, but which also requires greater demand and responsibility. 

With this legacy that was left to me, it’s easier to deal with it, so it wasn’t something new introduced by me. Interestingly, we have evolved, mainly because today we are part of the business, but more than enablers we are business partners.