About

Ursa’s head of legal, Ana Lluch is responsible for 20 jurisdictions in which the company operates, including Turkey. When she first assumed her position in 2005 there was no legal culture in Ursa and the legal team was not involved in the representation of the company. ‘We faced many problems. Setting up the new legal culture in a company from scratch was not an easy thing, but we made the business understand the benefits of it’ she says. This psychological change was a process that Lluch managed, proving the worth of the legal department over a period of time. The introduction of a unified system in the legal workings of the company and developing policies and norms focusing on transparency was a crucial first step for the department. Among her biggest achievements Lluch lists an arbitration against the seller of a Turkish factory, the outcome of which far exceeded the best case scenario anticipated by the company. Lluch has faced many challenges during her in-house career, but ‘managing 30 legal entities with different jurisdictions, idiosyncrasy, practice and no claim, no penalties so far’ has been the biggest hurdle which she has overcome successfully.