Team size: Twelve

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

One core characteristic of Iulius Group is that the investments projects rarely slow down, even in times of financial instability or crises and as such, our focus is to make sure that the resources, talent and effort of the legal team is focused on reaching the objectives set by the overall business strategy. Our experience with such situations is that a good communication with all the stakeholders involved in such group strategies is paramount and that we need to also pay close attention to the workload of our colleagues and find optimisation solutions where necessary, considering that such situations of instability/crises usually generate an increase in the overall flow of documents and requests which require the assistance of the legal department.

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?

In the last few years, Iulius Company Group has turned environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and objectives into one of the main focuses of the group business operations and procedures. All the projects in the Iulius Group portfolio have already obtained green certifications or are in the process of certification, which shows their high level of performance, in accordance with the international principles of building efficiency and sustainability.

The organisation has also implemented a robust system of corporate governance by applying rigorous business ethics policies, ensuring compliance with the highest standards of transparency and integrity. This strong governance has enabled the company group to build a strong reputation in the industry, where ethics and sustainability are increasingly important to investors and the communities in which they operate. In the context of an increasingly complex international legal framework, the legal department has facilitated the compliance with ESG reporting requirements from a legal perspective, resulting in better communication of the company’s performance to investors, authorities and the general public and made an important contribution to the achievement of the organisation’s sustainability objectives, actively supporting the sustainability team in implementing and strengthening strategic initiatives.

A central element of this contribution was working closely with the sustainability department to translate ESG objectives into the legal framework of the entire group of companies. The legal team worked closely with all departments involved to ensure that sustainable initiatives are supported by a solid legal basis and adapted to industry requirements and has also ensured that the contracts signed with our partners contain well-defined sustainability clauses, through which our partners also commit to complying with the environmental and social standards that Iulius Group pursues.