Legal Business

RSA group GC Walsh to depart as rising star Heiss appointed legal chief

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Insurance giant RSA’s longstanding group general counsel and company secretary Derek Walsh (pictured) is to leave the company at the end of February after nearly six years, with Charlotte Heiss to succeed him in the new role of chief legal officer and company secretary.

Heiss will join the group executive team and report to chief executive Stephen Hester, while group chief risk officer William McDonnell will assume responsibility for the compliance function.

Managing director for the commercial division, Jon Hancock, will be responsible for RSA’s relationship with the company’s key global insurance brokers.

Walsh, who also served as global broker relationship director, joined the company in 2010 from Argo Group International Holdings. Trained at Norton Rose, he also served as group general counsel at Benfield Group.

Having overseen a 100-strong team spanning legal, compliance and company secretarial, and with a legal spend ranging between £3-£5m annually, excluding claims work, major landmarks during his near six-year stint at RSA include discussions around the group’s ultimately unsuccessful £5bn bid for parts of Aviva’s general insurance business in the UK, Ireland and Canada, and RSA’s £773m rights issue in 2014.

Walsh’s preferred advisers have previously included Slaughter and May, Allen & Overy, Linklaters, Norton Rose Fulbright, Pinsent Masons, RPC, and Hogan Lovells. The FTSE 100 company’s global legal panel review was delayed last year following a shake-up of its senior management team which saw Hester, formerly chief executive of The Royal Bank of Scotland, step into the top role in 2014.

Heiss, whose appointment is subject to regulatory approval, featured as a rising star in the Legal Business 2014 GC Power List. Linklaters-trained Heiss joined the company as legal counsel in 2010 and was rapidly promoted to her current position of head of group legal by September 2011.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

For more coverage on RSA Group, see Profile: Derek Walsh.

Legal Business

Breaking into law: RSA latest to gain ABS licence as it teams up with Parabis

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UK insurer RSA is the latest business to be awarded an alternative business structure (ABS) licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), in a joint venture with Parabis Law.

According to a spokesperson at the insurer, RSA Law Limited has been created to ‘support our customers who have a genuine need for a seamless high quality claims and legal service.’

The licence, which is effective from 1 April, will initially consist of six legally qualified individuals led by a head of legal practice Allison Kemp – seconded into RSA Law from Parabis. Kemp will have responsibility for legal risk management within the ABS as well as managing the day-to-day operation and delivery of legal services. Legal Business understands that the in-house department, which is led by group general counsel Derek Walsh, is not involved in RSA Law – which will be a separate legal entity.

The joint venture’s licence allows it to practice a range of reserved legal activities including: rights of audience, conduct of litigation, reserved instrument activities, probate activities, and to administer oaths. The licence is conditional on the venture not disclosing client information or records to RSA without first obtaining the client’s consent while RSA is also not allowed to represent itself as being regulated by the SRA.

The move with the RSA follows Parabis’ partnership with Direct Line at the start of 2014 as that insurer also obtained an ABS licence. Insurer Ageas has also formed an ABS to provide legal services to customers, teaming up with NewLaw Solicitors.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

RSA Group

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  • Group general counsel: Derek Walsh.
  • Team headcount: 40 lawyers.

The sizeable legal team at insurance giant RSA, which consists of 40 lawyers globally across the strands of legal, compliance and company secretarial is ‘well run, very tight and high quality’, according to insurance partner David Webster at RPC. A Magic Circle partner comments on the ‘high quality of in-house practitioners across the board that have been carefully recruited’.

Big mandates for the legal function include the £773m rights issue, which took place in March 2014, following losses in 2013 exacerbated by a £220m fraud in the group’s Irish business. On the team’s performance, group GC Derek Walsh says: ‘The rights issue was a really substantial achievement and my legal team got a lot of positive feedback. You don’t see too many rights issues in the marketplace. Recently we have also sold some assets at excellent prices. For my team it’s been a fantastic experience and learning curve.’

RSA is recognised for having strong ranks of younger lawyers, with the group’s head of legal Charlotte Heiss last year named as a Legal Business rising star. Walsh is also supported directly by Jenny Margetts, group head of regulatory, risk and compliance, and Elinor Bell, deputy group company secretary.
The team is regarded as having a strong track record in terms of promotion with talented individuals put through its training and development regime and an
established programme of mentoring.

The legal function also scores well on the diversity front – 66% of the leadership team are female, however Walsh insists that is led not by design. ‘I’ve just picked the best people every time I want to promote somebody,’ says Walsh. ‘Businesses talk about diversity but one of the things I feel genuinely proud of is that we have acted and achieved our objectives just by picking the best people for the job.’

Legal Business

In-house moves: Glencore and RSA announce senior appointments

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Glencore Xstrata has promoted former Glencore general counsel (GC) Richard Marshall as its overall head of legal in the wake of its $66bn merger.

Marshall joined Glencore in 2005, having worked at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. He moved to the firm’s London office from the Sydney office of Mallesons Stephen Jacques where he had been a partner since 1984.

Marshall will now head the legal and compliance team according to a Glencore Xstrata presentation document published on 3 May, which also promised a ‘capital-efficient business model’ following the merger.

Negotiations over the deal, which have taken 15 months, have seen Glencore secure the vast majority of senior appointments in the newly merged mining giant. Former Xstrata chief legal counsel Benny Levene has left the company after a period as a consultant.

In other client-side appointments, global insurer RSA has announced the promotion of Carl Blake to general counsel for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Blake joined the London-headquartered RSA in February 2012 as part of the group legal counsel team, having previously worked as a senior associate in the corporate and M&A team of Clifford Chance.

He will now lead the RSA legal team within the CEEME region on a range of legal, risk and compliance matters.

Elsewhere, Iglo Group GC Anthony Barratt will leave this year, having joined from Telefónica’s O2 Airwave in 2006.

Private equity giants Blackstone and BC Partners made a joint €2.5bn bid for Birds Eye Iglo in June 2012, an offer rejected by Iglo’s owner, Permira.

A spokesman for Iglo Group said: ‘We would like to thank Anthony for the huge contribution he has made to Iglo Group over the past six years and we wish him well for the future when he leaves later in the year. We have begun a search for Anthony’s replacement.’

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk