Article in CajaSiete Blog, 23 March 2021

Minimum price for bananas: demagogy is destructive


Leopoldo Cólogan at a banana plantation in Tenerife.

Demagogy is destroying us and reality is taking over. It goes without saying that anyone involved in the production of any kind of product needs to sell it for more than the costs of production and make a profit in order for it to be worth it.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 17 December 2020

From being hosts to promoting a humanitarian operation in the Western Sahara to the UN


Playa de Las Teresitas, with sand from the Sahara Desert, on the east coast of Tenerife.
Hotels were the main stars of the year 2020. They were places where heroes, with a sense of social responsibility and demonstrating creativity and ethics, successfully tackled one of the first cases of the disease known as COVID-19, which evolved to become the current pandemic, in Spain at the beginning of 2020.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog. 22 September 2020

To be an entrepreneur is to evolve,
just like the Spanish Royal Family


La Punta on the south coast of Tenerife.

A change of mentality is needed in which society places greater value on entrepreneurial activity and risk-taking. The key to such change is undoubtedly the education system, fostering respect for entrepreneurs and business people, as well as for business ethics, as creators of wealth and social welfare.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog. 23 June 2020

The @normality of 2020
and the vaccine against political parties


Playa de las Gaviotas on the east coast of Tenerife.
We are living in a period which should remind us how important it is to improve the separation of powers in order to protect ourselves from the special interests of political parties, whatever they may be, and to safeguard a democracy which allows people to exercise liberty, which is personal and not collective, and allows them to fulfil themselves and be happy through their efforts.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 26 March 2020

Lessons from the coronavirus: the EU and industrial transformation


Leopoldo Cólogan in front of the mural of Sonia Sotomayor, US Supreme Court Justice, in the Bronx, New York.

Lessons should be drawn from any experience, positive or negative, in order to avoid making the same mistakes again or to identify what can be improved for this generation and future generations.
The coronavirus crisis is a reminder that human beings are vulnerable and that borders are fictitious lines artificially created to organise us as a human collective, as Yuval Noah Harari wrote in his book “Sapiens. From Animals into Gods.”

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 17 december 2019

Humanisation is innovation and represents a legacy and resilience


Leopoldo Cólogan, alongside Pablo Marrero and Gustavo García, co-founders and organisers of Géiser.
The agricultural sector has reasons to celebrate in the Canary Islands
Philosophy, psychology and anthropology, along with engineering and mathematics, are flourishing. These and other topics were brought forward at the excellent forum of responsible innovation, creativity and business, Géiser 2019, which was held at the Auditorio de Tenerife…
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 26 september 2019

Added value should not be an urban legend


Leopoldo Cólogan in the Historical Military Museum of the Canary Islands (the old Almeyda Fort in Santa Cruz de Tenerife).
The online formation of companies under the microscope. In reality, in order to have taxation on added value, it needs to be clear and not just made up. It must prove the non-existence of an increase in the value of the land arduously transferred to the liable taxpayer and, therefore, that the main tax obligation corresponding…
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 27 june 2019

The new regulation of property loan agreements and the handling of personal data by political parties


Banana plantations in Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife.
Recognition of economic and social development
The first impression counts, and as Oscar Wilde put it, there is no second chance for the first impression. “In this era, in which things are judged so easily just by appearances, for a lack of better documentation,”
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 28 march 2019

The new term for home rentals and holiday rentals


South of Tenerife Island.
Development in the banana sector representative of the balance of the three powers
On 22 February 2019, Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros, former High Commissioner for the Spain Brand, reminded us that “the image is how the brand is perceived, not what it looks like”.
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 13 december 2018

Mortgage taxation: a mirror of what is happening in Spain – separation of powers


South of Tenerife Island.
There are two adjectives, spectacular and stimulating, that I would use to sum up Géiser 2018, a day that was centred around entrepreneurship and innovation. At the Auditorio de Tenerife on 8 November 2018…
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 16 agoust 2018

Banana producer organisations and plantation subsidies

Arico, South of Tenerife Island. Photograph by Cristina Rodríguez de Azero.
At a recent function of the Association for the Advancement of Management in the Canary Islands, I was reminded of an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In the digitalised world of the 21st century, these two things can be combined as there are different ways to collaborate and, at the same time, gain the momentum of going it alone, respecting personal and independent development.
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 15 may 2018

Consent must be informed consent

Las Américas, south of Tenerife Island.
Sometimes a ‘yes’ is not sufficient for it to be deemed that consent has been granted under our law. This is because for it to be valid it is required that all necessary information pertaining to the business we are referring to – the benefits, risks and consequences –
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 08 february 2018

Agricultural subsidies and management of direct subsidies

Garachico, North of Tenerife Island.
Why do agricultural subsidies exist? Where do they come from? Both questions take us back to the year 1962 – after the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which gave birth to the European Union – when the Common Agricultural Policy, better known as CAP, was established in a Western Europe conditioned by the shortcomings of the post-war era.
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 09 october 2017.

Time is money for companies

Roque Bermejo, east of Tenerife Island.
It has always been said, and I subscribe to this, that it is better to have a bad deal than a good lawsuit. The rationale behind this statement lies in the time and sacrifice that a deal demands from its parties. A lawsuit requires a lot of time and attention that could otherwise be invested in attending to the needs of the business.
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Article in Cajasiete Blog, 17 august 2017.

Brexit: an opportunity for the Canary Islands?

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, east of Tenerife Island.
It does not require vast knowledge of history to know that before the European Union existed, the British had colonies of residents in Spain who had connections to the business and economic sectors, and as a result, elements of their own lifestyle, culture and language were handed down, such as football and golf, the entrepreneurial middle class and working class, as well as the English language itself.
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Article in ABC newspaper, 21 April 2017

Public deficit and the family business


Punta del Hidalgo, in the northeast of Tenerife
On 30 March 2017, the Minister of Finance and Civil Service, Cristóbal Montoro, declared that the reduction of the public deficit is a powerful tool for improving economic growth and the creation of new jobs. To understand this statement, I had to remind myself what public deficit is; it is nothing other than what is produced when government spending is greater than its revenues. In other words, what this statement means is that, if the government were to spend less or have greater revenues, there would be an improvement in economic growth.
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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 28 march 2017

The fictional tax and the culture of effort


Ventanas de Güimar, in the south of Tenerife
I have always thought that the best way to increase revenues through the collection of taxes involves encouraging and boosting economic and social activity by establishing simple taxes that are understood by all those that have to pay them, and not by creating notional and unfair taxes which do not correspond to reality, and by setting an example in the management of these resources so that society notices them through the improvement of services and general welfare.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 17 january 2017

The family business and tourism


Playa El Duque, in the south of Tenerife
Sometimes we do not realise the obvious, even when it is right in front of our eyes. I realised this, one Saturday morning, while I was sportworking. I am aware of the fact that in a family business it is so important to organise heritage management and business activity, to draw up family…

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 14 September 2016

A draft bill for the Canary Islands


Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the east of Tenerife
The strategic location and production capacity of land in the Canary Islands were highly regarded at the end of the eighteenth century by merchant fleets and European navies, which used the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to supply their ships. There is no doubt that without these facilities it would have been impossible for the British Empire to consolidate its expansion.

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Article in CajaSiete Blog, 26 april 2016

Your responsibilities as a board member or senior executive

La Orotava Valley, in the north of Tenerife
Before the Commercial Code of 1829, Spain in general, and the Canary Islands in particular lacked overarching commercial regulation, which put trade relations at risk and led to conflicts between merchants. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the absence of other laws, merchants from the Canary Islands, who we would now call entrepreneurs, applied the set of rules most recognised by moral authority: las Reales Ordenanzas del Consulado de Bilbao of 1737 (a set of ordinances governing trade).
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Think Tank for law students and lawyers
in English and Spanish since 2017

10 places

What we are looking for:
“I would like to thank you for the pleasantness of your classes and, above all, their usefulness. I speak on behalf of the entire class when I say that we were eager for more and we look forward to having more classes with you.”.
Anaïs L. García, delegate for the Master´s Degree in Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of La Laguna, 23 December 2016.

“Teaching so much with an equal amount of humility is an art.” Mercedes Rodríguez, lawyer and former colleagues at Garrigues, 30 November 2016, and current Adviser to the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands.

This is our objective. Reflect on:

  1. The solution lies in the basic and essential, which is universal and it is important to know how to communicate it.
  2. Individual effort without being afraid of making a mistake.
  3. Imagination makes a difference.
  4. The pragmatism of experience.
  5. Competence with the values that represent “Law Hotel”.

leopoldo.cologan@leopoldocologan.com

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