Our Managing Partner Dr. Panagiotis Tzioumas on the GC Powerlist Event 2019

Strong relationships, forward legal thinking, united team: from our perspective, these are the essential ingredients for efficient, high-performance organizations, for efficient, high-performance teams.

This year’s GC Powerlist for Greece and Cyprus, which KLC has the honour to sponsor for a second time in a row, fully supports and reflects the above statement. Legal teams featured in this year’s list have demonstrated the capacity and focus to add true value to their businesses. This is happening against a background of urgent challenges that Greece has to face in an ever-changing economic, political and social environment combined with landmark changes to certain material fields of legislation.

Just to mention a few:

In the field of corporate law, recently adopted Law 4548/2018, which came into effect as of 1.1.2019, reformed Greek legislation regarding Greek Societes Anonymes and also incorporated the provisions regarding issue of bond loans previously included in Law 3156/2003; moreover, Law 4601/2019 introduced an integrated regulatory framework on companies’ transformations from a corporate law perspective;
in the area of capital markets law, amendments have been introduced and will be further established by new Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129; in addition Law 4514/2018 incorporated MiFID IΙ Directive into the Greek legislation in January 2018 and also introduced certain amendments to Law 3461/2006 relating to takeover bids;
the civil procedural landscape in Greece was drastically altered by Law 4335/2015, which introduced various amendments to the Greek Code of Civil Procedure enacted on 1 January 2016.
the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR - 2016/679) directly applicable in all EU member-states since May 2018 poses additional challenges to in-house legal teams of companies that have to establish efficient mechanisms to ensure compliance with the new data protection framework.

Last but not least, significant changes throughout the regulatory framework of taxation continue – often unexpectedly and extraordinarily – due to the fiscal crisis which the country faces in recent years as well as the obligations undertaken as part of the bail out schemes and agreements signed with Greece’s creditors. Despite all such changes, tax legislation still remains largely fragmented and therefore expertise in tax law is still highly appreciated by owners and managers of all types of businesses.

Within the above changing legal framework, organisations do not only require their legal teams to have deep knowledge of legal provisions as in force from time to time, but they urge them to deliver solutions, simply and effectively. This presupposes that in-house legal teams understand the business, understand the risks, understand the objectives and visions and stay committed to them.

Moreover, at a time when boards are increasingly focused on managing legal spending, it is vital that in-house lawyers can identify the most cost-effective way to engage their external lawyers and establish strong, long-term relationships with them so as to consistently provide the business with the best commercially-aware legal advice.

In such a challenging environment KLC has achieved to maintain and further develop existing, but also establish new, strong and long-lasting relationships with corporate clients and their legal teams. KLC continues to consistently support its corporate clients in all practice areas by providing commercially astute advice on contentious and non-contentious matters and contributing to the development of strategic decisions within the relative legal and regulatory frameworks. KLC’s competitive advantage is the specialisation of our highly qualified and experienced lawyers in various legal areas and at the same time the ability to combine our expertise from various fields and practices in order to provide comprehensive and business oriented legal services. Our devotion to client service by a well-bonded team of specialized professionals aim at meeting the expectations of our clientele and building a trusting and successful relationship.

Experience has taught us that delivering high quality services requires close collaboration with the colleagues who know our clients best, being a vital part of their organization. Looking through this year’s legal teams Powerlist and reading – and in certain cases having first-hand knowledge – about the astonishing work done and excellent results achieved by those highly skilled and efficient colleagues, tells me we can continue to learn a lot from the modus operandi of the in-house legal teams.

Having said that, congratulations to all legal teams featured in this year’s list!