Esade Alumni Aptissimi award winners: Luis de Carlos Bertrán (Uría Menéndez), CNMC, Acciona, MasMovil Group and Xavier Pujol (Alantra)
The winners of the Esade Alumni Aptissimi Business Law Awards are Luis de Carlos Bertrán, partner and president of Uría Menéndez, CNMC (Spain’s stock exchange and competition commission), Acciona, MásMóvil Group and Xavier Pujol, partner, secretary general and director of the Alantra law firm. Aptissimi, the benchmark awards for business law in Spain held annually by the Esade Alumni Law Club and now in their 14th year, are an acknowledgement of achievements in four areas of business law: professional career, contribution to the legal profession and society, corporate counsel, and the outstanding legal career of a former Esade student.
The panel of judges for these awards consists of members of leading law firms, companies and entities working with Esade. This year’s Aptissimi award ceremony, held yesterday at the Real Fábrica de Tapices in Madrid, is the most important event of the year for Spain’s corporate legal world and was attended by some 300 representatives of leading law firms, corporate counsels, members of public authorities with links to the law profession, State lawyers, registrars and other foremost members of this profession.
Four awards
The winner of the Outstanding Career Award is Luis de Carlos Bertrán, partner and president of Uría Menéndez. The panel highlighted “his long, considerable career as an outstanding lawyer in the business world, particularly regarding stock exchange law, company law and corporate governance, mergers and buy-outs and banking law.” The panel also emphasized “his great achievements at the helm of one of Spain’s most famous law firms, his noteworthy teaching activities and his prestige in the legal profession.”
The winner of the award for the best contribution to the legal profession and society is the CNMC (Spain’s stock market and competition commission), Esade Alumni’s acknowledgement of the contributions made by professionals and entities to the development of business law as a corporate sector. The panel took into account the CNMC’s role as a “cornerstone of Spain’s economy,” in terms of its institutional weight and impact on business law, and highlighted “its regulatory and sanctioning capacities, and its mission of promoting and safeguarding the smooth running of markets and equal opportunities by upholding effective competition, whilst always acting in the interest of consumers and companies.”
The winners of this year’s Esade Alumni Aptissimi award for the best corporate counsel are ACCIONA and the MASMOVIL Group. The panel was impressed by Acciona’s “multi- jurisdictional scope, teamwork, involvement and engagement of counsel members as a strategic partner in the company, the in-house leadership in the settlement of legal challenges, the commitment to diversity, the measures implemented to attract and retain younger talent, and the on-going, transversal training of their professionals”. Regarding the MásMóvil Group, the panel highlighted “the well-rounded, transversal preparation of their legal team, and their capacity to respond to new issues and changes in legislation. As regards the latter, the panel also praised the in-house leadership in legal defense, guidance and settlement of legal challenges, and their promotion of diversity and working from home and training for their professionals.”
Finally, the Insignis Alumni award for former students of different programs at the Esade Law School who have forged outstanding careers in legal, academic, cultural, business and social spheres went to Xavier Pujol, partner, secretary general and director of the Alantra law firm. The panel of judges was particularly impressed by “his brilliant career as both a practicing lawyer in acclaimed Spanish and international law firms, and also his achievements in senior positions in the legal counsels of major companies.”
Esade Alumni also awarded a special prize to Jorge Badía (1962-2022), former CEO of Cuatrecasas, for his involvement as a judge for the Professional Career award.
Esade Alumni Aptissimi Awards
Previous winners of Aptissimi awards include the prestigious lawyers Miquel Roca Junyent, Rodrigo Uría, Fernando Pombo, José Pedro Pérez-Llorca and Gaspar Ariño; the international academics Christian Armbrüster, Barry Carter and David O. Wilkins; the leading corporate counsels at Aena, Abertis, Inditex, Ferrovial, CaixaBank and Telefónica España; and such foremost entities as the CNMV, Abogacía General del Estado, International Chamber of Commerce, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the International Bar Association, to name but a few.
The sponsors who helped organize the 14th Aptissimi Awards were: AGM Abogados, Allen & Overy, Anzizu López & Castellanos, Ashurst, Baker & McKenzie Abogados, BDO Abogados, Broseta, Clifford Chance Abogados, CMS Albiñana Suárez de Lezo, Crowe Horwath, Cuatrecasas Gonçalves Pereira, S.L.P., Deloitte Legal, Dentons, EY, Fieldfisher, Font Abogados y Economistas, Freshfields, Garrigues, Abogados y Asesores Tributarios, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Abogados, S.L.P., Iterlegis, KPMG, Osborne Clarke, Pedrosa Lagos, Perez-Llorca, PwC, Roca Junyent, S.L.P., Rosaud Costas Durán Abogados, Santiago Mediano, Uría Menéndez, S.L.P. VIALEGIS.
