Araceli Leyva

Araceli Leyva is the Secretary General of Cases & Lacambra and a member of the Financial Services Group in Spain where she provides legal advice in Corporate & M&A and in banking and financial services regulation. She is the Firm’s coordinator of legal criteria in Commercial and Company Law She is a member of the Madrid Arbitration Tribunal and acts regularly as an arbitrator in banking and finance mattes, amongst others.

After completing her legal studies in the United Kingdom, she started her professional career in Bufete Olivencia – Ballester in Seville and later joined the legal department of the 1992 Seville Universal Exposition, specializing in the commercial and participants area of the Exposition. In 1993 she joined the financial legal department of Banco Español de Crédito, S.A. (Banesto), where she specialized in derivative products, acting as an advisor to the treasury department of the bank after its intervention by the Bank of Spain. In 1997 she joined the legal department of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks (CECA) as a specialist in financial and derivative transactions, and later became the coordinator of the Commercial Law area of the Legal Department. During this period, she provided legal advice on a wide range of financial and derivative transactions and corporate transactions of companies in which CECA and the Spanish Savings Banks had an interest, in some of which she was Secretary of the Board of Directors.

She was also the Secretary of the CECA Legal Committee and lead the Corporate Governance Unit of CECA and CECABANK.

Throughout her professional career, she has regularly given lectures and seminars on Derivatives Master Agreements, Finance and Securities Markets in several universities and business schools. She has also been a member of working groups in national and international regulatory bodies and financial markets associations.