Keep calm and… The GC guide to handling a crisis

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Cyber attacks, corporate scandals, environmental disaster… just some of the threats businesses face as they go global. Legal Business asks leading GCs how to handle – and avoid – a crisis.

 

‘I’ve dealt with many crises… government investigations, data privacy breaches, pollution… they’re all nauseating. Your gut churns when you get that call and know the next few weeks or even years are going to be tough.’
Bjarne Tellmann, general counsel, Pearson

‘What happened to Lehman Brothers? And to Bear Stearns? I’m not sure even the people at Lehman or Bear Stearns could tell you. The only certainty is the fourth and fifth largest investment banks in the US are no longer. And that it happened with breathtaking speed.’
Peter Beshar, general counsel, Marsh & McLennan

 

 

 

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Client profile: Anna Tolley, Anheuser-Busch InBev

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The brewing giant’s legal and corporate affairs director discusses mergers and learning on the job

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) legal director Anna Tolley describes the constant change at the drinks company as a rollercoaster she is still yet to get off. After joining (then) InBev as senior legal counsel in 2009, the young lawyer quickly moved up the ranks post-merger with AB InBev appointing her head of legal for UK and Ireland in 2011, two years after she joined. A year later Tolley was bumped up to UK and Ireland legal director and, following another promotion, is now the company’s legal and corporate affairs director for Northern Europe and sits on AB InBev’s UK operating board of directors.

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The rise of the lawyer statesman – A new vision for general counsel

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In the closing address of the 2016 Enterprise GC summit, GE veteran Ben Heineman laid out his vision for general counsel as lawyer statesman and charted the revolution remaking global law

I want to give you an overview of my theory about the inside counsel revolution. It is clear it has happened in the US. It is happening to a degree in Europe and in Asia. General counsel (GCs) have become much more sophisticated, capable and influential, transforming law and business in two ways. Inside the company, the GC has become the primary counsellor to the chief executive and board, replacing the law firm senior partner. He or she leads corporate units beyond the law. The role has become comparable in importance to the chief financial officer (CFO) due to the increased global complexity and the rising importance of ‘business in society’ issues. There has been a dramatic change in the skill, the experience, the breadth and the compensation of the GC.

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Client profile: Bjarne Tellmann, Pearson

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The plain-speaking Pearson law chief on driving change and pulling up your role models

Last month, Pearson’s high-profile senior vice president and general counsel (GC) Bjarne Tellmann was attending an executive leadership course at Harvard Law School when he bumped into Ben Heineman, General Electric Company (GE)’s former veteran legal head who is lauded by many for inventing the playbook for the sophisticated, globe-trotting GC.

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Lost in translation – can regulators respond to the rise of in-house?

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As the SRA prepares to overhaul its handbook, we ask whether its new focus on in-house will be enough to help tackle the ethical issues general counsel face.

‘There’s a serious danger of a regulator trying to regulate something that it doesn’t understand,’ says Kingfisher group general counsel (GC) and company secretary Clare Wardle. Her comment comes as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) works on another overhaul of its handbook, halfway through a two-year review that will end in 2017, a process that has clear plans to be more inclusive of the in-house profession.

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Client profile: Oscar Grut, The Economist

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The international news outlet’s long-serving GC discusses the company’s buy-back move and its digital ventures

It was third time lucky when Legal Business finally managed to catch up with The Economist Newspaper’s general counsel (GC) and company secretary, Oscar Grut. The GC offered a stream of apologies on this reporter’s arrival in his Canary Wharf office, explaining that he had been busy selling off the company’s London headquarters in St James’s.

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Passion Plays – the outside interests broadening the horizons of the modern GC

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General counsel have more responsibilities than ever yet many find time in the schedule for outside commitments. James Wood reports.

Working long hours, expected to be available at all hours, and labelled a cost-centre. Such are the pressures of life in-house. The days of commerce and industry as a softer option for lawyers than the toil of the law firm associate track are rapidly drawing to a close.

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GC Perspectives – Philip Bramwell, BAE Systems

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I’m of an age where I form part of a group of lawyers who elected to pursue careers in-house from the outside. I had failed to complete a chemical engineering course so I had a very clear purpose in studying law: I wanted to work in-house. I identified a couple of industries I thought should grow so I might surf that wave.

I started out in pharma in the late ‘70s, which was immensely enjoyable. I grew a love of complex businesses – global, multinational businesses. They provide rich opportunities for lawyers in a variety of areas – commercial, corporate, M&A. That is the theme I followed throughout my career.

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GC Powerlist 2016

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The journey continues – GCs keep marching onwards

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For the 2016 edition of GC Powerlist we return to the original format of the report – launched in 2013 – focusing on senior general counsel (GCs). Over that time, the report has expanded hugely to become one of the most important strands of Legalease’s portfolio. Expanding the report also reflects the reality that in understanding GCs, you need to look at the specifics. While law firms operate on a few variants of the same model, in-house teams are defined much more by the industry and the individual company in which they work.

But there are broad trends as well. The upward march of the in-house profession that this report was originally launched to chronicle has, if anything, accelerated. While law firms are struggling for growth in many sectors, in-house teams continue to expand in the UK and take on greater swathes of work. It’s becoming increasingly mainstream to encounter teams with multimillion-pound budgets that put only a tiny minority of their work to law firms. Where they are instructing outside counsel, a good proportion of GCs now barely bother to conceal their tactic of pushing law firms down the value chain… and their teams correspondingly upwards.

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