About

A bright light amongst US-based in-house legal functions who focus on work in Latin America, the legal team at BIC International is recognised for the diversity of its activity and the skill it shows across multiple jurisdictions to shepherd the brand’s commercial activity in the region. The team is comprised of six members in total and is led by LaTanya Langley, vice president and general counsel of BIC International. In the last year the team has won a very important advertising law case in Mexico in response to a complaint filed in 2016 by the Matches Manufacturers Association (MMA) in Mexico City before the Federal Consumer Ombudsman (PROFECO). The MMA complaint, filed in 2015, alleged that BIC’s advertising campaign for its BIC MAXI lighter contained images and claims that misled or confused consumers, in violation of Article 32 of the Federal Consumer Protection Law. Following a thorough analysis by a federal laboratory, the court ruled that BIC’s advertising claim is accurate and in compliance with consumer protection laws in Mexico. In terms of regulatory activities, BIC’s Latin American legal team supported institutional actions before relevant authorities to get an effective enforcement of product safety laws. It had surveyed unfair competitors that do not comply with mandatory safety standards and managed to schedule meetings with government offices and other relevant institutions in several Latin American countries, pleading for standards enforcement and enhanced market surveillance. Additionally, the IP team with the support of the Latin American in-house legal and local teams recently obtained the 3D trademark protection for BIC’s Cristal pen and its J5 and J6 lighters in Argentina. These trademarks will allow BIC to launch anti-counterfeit actions against products that copy the shape of Cristal ball pens or BIC lighters without using the trademark BIC. The Latin American legal teams also worked to successfully implement aggressive claims for the Latin American market in a very competitive context. Ariel Fernández Hevia, Latin American general counsel has been a key individual to BIC’s projects in the region managing the Latin American legal team and intervening directly in sensitive cases. In particular, he has been a key contributor to BIC’s safety enforcement initiatives, working closely with authorities and keeping the company very active in the regulation’s evolution. He has also led BIC’s lawyers in ‘a very effective way, showing strategic thinking to solve litigation situations with effective negotiations with commercial partners’, according to Langley. In addition, Langley highlights that, ‘the most important challenge has been to get the authorities to correctly enforce the existing rules and regulations in front of unfair competitors. Related with this, another challenge the legal team had to overcome was to keep the company’s hands free from competing with unethical competitors that raised ungrounded challenges to block our commercial initiatives’.