Squeezed – the insurance industry and the modern GC

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Pressure to cut costs and innovate, alongside an increasingly robust regulatory environment, has squeezed the UK insurance industry in recent years. How are in-house teams faring in an ultra-competitive market?

The UK insurance market is the third largest in the world, according to the Association of British Insurers, yet it is struggling to make money. Despite taking a battering, the industry has weathered the global financial crisis far better than its counterparts in other financial services and, while it has successfully avoided many of the high-profile difficulties that have undone retail banks in recent years, the retail insurance industry now finds itself in a new era of challenges.

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Client Profile: John Davidson, SABMiller

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The multinational drinks giant’s GC on balancing regulation with refreshment.

A pub crawl or alcoholic supermarket sweep is not typically on the agenda for the average general counsel (GC)’s business trip, but this is exactly what makes SABMiller’s GC and corporate affairs director John Davidson’s job so unusual.

‘When we are in a country, we always make sure we build in what we call a trade visit, but what my wife calls a paid pub crawl, to visit other premises and outlets,’ says Davidson. ‘I spent Wednesday morning last week in Warsaw visiting four different supermarkets. Imagine doing that and getting paid for it.’ Continue reading “Client Profile: John Davidson, SABMiller”

The proposition – what you always wanted to know about adding value (but were afraid to ask)

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For years general counsel have professed their commitment to ‘adding value’. Is there any substance to the jargon?

Most general counsel (GCs) don’t think much of the term ‘adding value’ – a surprising revelation considering how frequently those two banal words crop up in conversation with in-house counsel.

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Client profile: Carolyn Jameson, Skyscanner

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Skyscanner is truly a business of the digital age. Officially launched in 2003, the travel search site, which provides instant online comparisons for over 1,000 airlines, as well as car hire and hotels, has grown to become the number-one flight search engine in Europe and now operates worldwide with offices in eight countries and travel searches in more than 30 languages.

For senior director and general counsel (GC) Carolyn Jameson, this was just one of the factors which encouraged her to join the team as its first legal head two years ago.

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The court of King Content – the lawyers making their mark in the high end TV

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The internet and the emergence of a global market for high-end series has ushered in a golden age of TV production and seismic changes to the media environment. Legal Business reports on the lawyers working in one of the fastest-changing industries.

These days, the small screen is big business. Popular television programmes, like period drama Downton Abbey, cost an average of around £1m to produce per hour of screen time, whereas fantasy epic Game of Thrones has reached new financial heights, with a budget of up to $8m (£5.3m) per episode.

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Client profile: Benoit Belhomme, British American Tobacco

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BAT’s western Europe GC on the trials and tribulations of working in a controversial industry

Most general counsel (GCs) working for large multinational corporations will deal with regulation fairly frequently, but it is unlikely to be quite as stringent as that faced by in-house lawyers at one of the world’s largest tobacco groups – British American Tobacco (BAT).

‘We are working in one of – if not the –toughest regulatory environments that there is,’ argues BAT’s regional GC for western Europe, Benoit Belhomme.

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So demanding – are contract lawyers business delivering for clients?

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Contract lawyer businesses have hugely expanded in recent years with law firms increasingly entering the market. But are clients getting what they want?

Inevitably, it was a late epiphany for law firms when it came to offering contract lawyer services. Having belatedly realised that their clients’ post-recession demands for reduced costs and flexible resourcing were not a fad, top 50 UK law firms have spent the last few years playing catch up.

Having lost ground to contract lawyer providers such as Axiom, Obelisk, Halebury, SSQ Interim Solutions and Lawyers On Demand (LOD), which was launched by Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) in 2007, firms including Eversheds, Allen & Overy (A&O), Pinsent Masons, DAC Beachcroft, Simmons & Simmons and Addleshaw Goddard have all launched their own varying contract lawyer models.

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GC Power List 2015: The Team Elite

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