The winners of the ESADE Alumni Law Club’s 12th Aptíssimi Awards were the lawyer Miquel Roca Junyent, professor Christian Armbrüster, the Aena legal counsel and the CNMV. The Aptíssimi Awards are held each year in recognition of outstanding entities and members of different areas of business law: academic, career, consultancy and corporate counsel.

The Aptíssimi award ceremony held on October 3 at the Maritime Museum, Barcelona, has become the annual meeting point of the legal profession in Spain. This year’s event brought together some 300 representatives of leading law firms and corporate counsels, in addition to members of legal authorities such as registrars, judges and State lawyers, and foremost members of other areas of the legal profession. 

Awards for outstanding careers and excellence 

Miquel Roca Junyent won the Outstanding Career Award. The panel of judges took into account a variety of professional and academic factors in his long career in business law, and most particularly his contribution to administrative and urban law, public procurement, mediation and arbitration, and his role on the board that drafted the 1978 Constitution and the commission that drafted the statutes of the autonomous region of Catalonia.

The winner of the Insignis Alumni Award was the president of the Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot, who graduated from ESADE with a degree and master in law, for “his vocation of public service in the different posts he has held in legal authorities and as a member of government”. The panel of judges consider that Espot, who was appointed in May after a lengthy career in the Andorran authorities, is a figurehead of “the values of effort, professionalism and work which, amongst other factors, characterise ESADE’s objectives.”

The winners of the institutional awards were Aena, for best corporate counsel, and the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), for its contribution to the profession. The panel of judges considered that Aena’s team of lawyers had completely transformed the strategy and orientation to business and culture of their corporate counsel in recent years, particularly emphasised their energy and determination to position themselves at the cutting edge of innovation, organisation and digital change.

The CNMV was described by the panel of judges as having exercised its functions with remarkable effectiveness and rigor, ensuring market transparency, establishing price control mechanisms and managing the keeping of public records about securities, intermediaries, collective investment institutions, and others. All this resulted in the CNMV receiving the Contribution to the Profession award, particularly for its prestigious stance and leadership in innovation focused on the regulatory criteria regarding the use of cryptocurrencies and tokens in finance operations.

Finally, Christian Armbrüster, a professor at Freie Universität Berlin, received the award for his academic contribution to the legal profession as a specialist in private law, business law and corporate law, having served as a judge in this field in the Superior Court of Justice in Berlin for six years. The panel of judges highlighted Armbrüster’s academic excellence and his standing as an international beacon in areas such as insurance law.

Aptíssimi sponsors 

The sponsors taking part in this year’s awards were BDO Abogados, Baker & McKenzie Abogados, Clifford Chance Abogados, Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, Deloitte Legal, EY, Garrigues, Abogados y Asesores Tributarios, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Abogados, Grant Thornton, KPMG, Osborne Clarke, Pedrosa Lagos, Pérez-Llorca, Roca Junyent, Rousaud Costas Durán Abogados, Uría Menéndez, ViaLegis and Iterlegis. Mention must also be made of the support received from AGM Abogados, Allen & Overy, Andersen Tax & Legal, Anzizu, López & Castellanos, Bufete Perez-Pozo, CMS Albiñana & Suárez de Lezo, Crowe Horwath, Dentons, DLA Piper, Santiago Mediano, Font Abogados y Economistas and Jausas.