The In-House Lawyer Homepage

1. INTRODUCTION:

As in most Latin American countries, individuals who enter into contracts with the State of Ecuador are subject to administrative law, a division of public law influenced by Europe’s mainland. This legal system requires strict submission to the law for any action carried out by public officers; this is known as the principle of legality. Greater focus is placed on this principle when public funds under contracts are managed. Consequently, any action subject to public law and that is not consistent with the procedures established in the law are deemed to be unlawful.
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Israel has been, and continues to be, a highly desired market for foreigners to invest in. 2017 saw total Israeli exit transactions of approximately $23 billion, including Mobileye for $15.3bn. Though this is down in terms of volume, it is up in terms of value. This is perhaps an indicator that the Israeli market is maturing and that Israeli entrepreneurs are now more able and willing to grow their companies to the point of significant market share, or past an IPO, prior to exit, as opposed to historical trends of those entrepreneurs looking for a quick exit. [Continue Reading]

Perhaps there are no better words than those above of Paulo Coelho, Brazilian author, to describe how to approach Latin America when exploring investment in the region for the first time. There has been a notable shift in traditional international investment to more exotic locations, where new opportunities meet new challenges.
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Providing a seamless customer experience:
the key to success for retailers?

As Mothercare and House of Fraser announce store closures and Debenhams issues another profits warning, it seems that more and more predominantly bricks and mortar high street stalwarts are struggling to profit in this challenging sector.
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To understand the importance of digital trust, particularly in the legal world, one doesn’t have to look far. Recent history is littered with examples of what can go wrong if that trust is misplaced. The most famous being the massive data breaches suffered by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and the offshore firm Appleby, which respectively led to the Panama and Paradise Papers scandals. In the case of Mossack Fonseca, which announced its closure in March, the reputational damage was fatal. The firm’s sobering fate will have prompted plenty of in-house and private practice lawyers to reassess how they harness and protect their digital data. Given the consequences when things go wrong, for them to sleep well at night would require a huge amount of trust. Not just in the internal employees and external collaborators who have direct access to the data, but also in the technology put in place to protect that data, and the people who are developing and managing that technology. Digital trust on that scale requires careful management.
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We have long heard about the expectation that general counsel need to be more like business leaders rather than just lawyers. But while in-house counsel may have once viewed this evolution as aspirational or optional, the proliferation of technology and the pace of business today have made it mandatory.
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Class actions represent a growing area of risk for UK corporates, with increasing numbers of high-profile and high-value group claims being brought, or threatened to be brought, in the English courts.
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The Polish have a somewhat colourful way of saying that something is not their problem – ‘not my circus, not my monkey’. Leaving private practice may well feel like you have escaped a zoo, but after a few days of taking over as in-house counsel it becomes increasingly clear that it is in fact your circus now and yes, you may well be that monkey!
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