Santo Domingo. Dominican Rep. The Ulises Cabrera law firm participated in the Franco-Dominican Cooperation seminar organized by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Cámara de Comercio e Industria Franco-Dominicana - CCIFD), principally focused on the economic development of two countries.

French and Dominican experts addressed topics related to:

  • The Foreign Investment Law
  • The Agreement between the two countries for reciprocal protection of investments
  • International Arbitration
  • The Dominican General Law on Integral Handling of Solid Wastes
  • Public-Private alliances
  • Legal normative rules for the development and use of renewable energy
  • The advantages of real property guarantees
  • The legal environment during the digital transition

In this context, our partners Mónica Villafaña, who also serves as secretary of the Legal Committee of CCIFD, and Magdalena Almonte were charged with being moderators of the panels on the Foreign Investment Law and its application in the Dominican Republic, the bill to reform the Foreign Investment Law, as well as the panel on the digital transition and the evolution of the protection of personal data and the rights to a life with privacy, respectively.

“In the past years, the Dominican economy has continually undergone a process of regulatory measures to open up commercially to international markets. The efforts of our legislators and governmental authorities have been outstanding, concentrating on creating the legal foundations to allow for economic sustainability with freedom and security in business dealings of goods and services among the different economic agents participating in same,”said Mónica Villafaña during her presentation.

Almonte moderated a digital panel with distinguished jurists, including Jean Baptiste Boussuges, Legal VP and head for the Americas for Total Energies Marketing Services; Mustapha Mekki, director of the Paris 13 University’s Law Research Institute and general director of the National School for Notaries; Soraya Amrani – Mekki, Vice-president of the National Commission on Human Rights in Francia; and Daniella Collado, the private sector legal expert on data privacy. The professionals discussed the evolution of protection of personal data and the right to a life of privacy, the use of Blockchain and Smart Contracts by companies, as well as legal gambling on digital platforms in the exercise of justice.

Magdalena Almonte asserted that advances in communication technologies have led to a transcendental, sudden, dizzying and disruptive development in the social and economic order of the world and that, while business and trade adapt, grow and employ the different boons of the internet of things, programming and interconnectivity to their advantage, the evolution of what a recent article called ‘the rules of the game’ has not kept pace.