Alessia Oddone Wales is an Italian lawyer and English solicitor. Throughout her career, she has alternated between working as a lawyer and as in-house counsel in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, always in international and multicultural contexts.
At CastaldiPartners, her work focuses on Compliance, ESG, and Commercial law.
Career
Alessia began her career in Italy at a law firm specializing in international commercial law. She then moved to the United Kingdom, where she qualified as a solicitor and worked first in a law firm and later in companies, where she was head of legal departments, managed teams, and created processes, risk-monitoring systems, and compliance programs, contributing to the strategic direction of the business.
At CastaldiPartners, Alessia assists clients on issues relating to compliance, ESG, and commercial matters, often with an international focus.
She also serves as a member of Supervisory Bodies.
She has obtained the CIPP/E certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She is a member of AODV (Association of Supervisory Body Members), the International Bar Association (where she is Chair of the D&I Working Party within the European Regional Forum), and the American Bar Association.
She works in Italian and English and has a good knowledge of French and Spanish.
Representative Matters
- Advised an Italian company on the sale of concession regarding areas of the Port of Trieste, to a German logistics and transportation company.
- Advising an energy company on various legal aspects of sustainability initiatives, including the prevention of greenwashing issues.
- Assisting a manufacturer of industrial goods in creating a supplier due diligence system, including key ESG parameters and drafting a suppliers’ code of ethics.
- Legal assessment and audit of several European subsidiaries of a Chinese parent company in connection with the group’s anti-corruption program.
- Assisting the UK subsidiary of an Italian group in developing an anti-corruption program based on the UK Bribery Act 2010 and aligned with the parent company’s 231 compliance system.
- Assisting a manufacturer of industrial goods in obtaining ISO certification in the field of anti-corruption.
- Drafting a 231 Model for Italian companies with a French parent, specifically aligning the Model with the group’s Loi Sapin II anti-corruption program.
- Legal assessment and audit of several European subsidiaries of a Chinese parent company in connection with the group’s privacy program.
- Member of Supervisory Bodies of companies operating in the fashion, industrial, agri-food, construction, and medical device sectors.
Assistance to the Italian branch of a European cybersecurity group on privacy, NIS2 compliance, e-commerce and consumer-law matters.
- Support and audits for the European subsidiaries of a Chinese medical-device group, covering a broad range of EU compliance requirements including privacy and cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence Act compliance, and adoption of electronic signatures in line with eIDAS.
- Creation and implementation of national and transnational compliance privacy programs and advising on data protection matters.
- Advice on a variety of business matters, including antitrust, marketing, advertising, sales, purchasing, intellectual property, privacy, e-commerce and social media.
- Drafting, reviewing and negotiating international commercial contracts including, among others, distribution, sales, purchasing, services, manufacturing, collaboration, research and development.
- Creation and implementation of records management programs.
- Evaluation and minimization of legal risks through the creation and implementation of compliance programmes, corporate governance, corporate procedures, corrective measures and training plans. Particular focus on anti-corruption matters, export control and sanctions, anti-money laundering, privacy and the Italian Law No. 231.
- Assisting clients in relation to the drafting of Organisational Models pursuant to Italian Law 231.
- Member (Chairman) of the Supervisory Boards (Organismo di Vigilanza) of companies in the fashion sector.
- Creation and implementation of antitrust compliance programs in the EMEA region, with particular focus on exclusive and selective distribution, sale agreements and staff training.
- Legal support to the direct sale of consumer goods in a multi-channel sales environment (stores, shop-in-shop and e-commerce), with a particular focus on international retail expansion.
- Advice on product safety and product liability matters; creation of a product liability claims management programme and supervision of a claim handling team; legal management of product safety issues; maintenance of the relations with surveillance authorities.
- Advice on consumer law issues and supervision of the legal activities of a consumer support team.
Speaking Engagements
Alessia regularly teaches and speaks at seminars and conferences on international compliance, ESG, and international legal affairs.
Education
- University of London, UK.
- Università di Genova, Italy.
