Features – The In-House Lawyer

If crisis elevates GCs, then 2020 will be an inflexion point for in-house counsel

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New Law is as a breed still a lot better at promise than delivery, particularly on claims of providing better value than law firms.

Fit for purpose

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Mark McAteer, The In-House Lawyer: How has the role of the general counsel changed over the last five years and how will it be different in five years’ time?

‘How does an organisation maintain resilience when everything it designed and built was for a different way of working?’ asks DWF’s global head of data protection, privacy and cybersecurity, Stewart Room. As the world battles a pandemic, organisations around the globe are turning homes into offices and personal devices into office tools. The sudden change …

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Education, education, education

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Julie Brannan, Solicitors Regulation Authority: It certainly is an important moment for the training of the profession, so it is sensible to start with a reminder of what it is all about. First, better assurance of high professional standards is at the heart of this. Protecting consumers of legal services by making sure everybody we …

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The imagination gap

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Rising temperatures and sea levels, shrinking ice sheets and sea ice, extreme weather events. They’re all mainstays of today’s news cycles with a worrying – and growing – frequency.

Eye of the storm

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‘Insurers are trying to remain profitable in a hard environment – it’s still a difficult and competitive market,’ notes Katherine Coates, head of insurance at Clifford Chance (CC), assessing the UK insurance industry a few days before the coronavirus outbreak was classed as a global emergency.

Reputation preserved

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Specialist lawyers, covering areas such as trade mark protection and enforcement as well as advertising and marketing, have had a role to play in shaping the success of some of the biggest global consumer brands.

Chicken run

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In an exclusive extract from her new book You Didn’t Mention The Piranhas, Sarah Nelson Smith writes candidly about how it feels to be in the middle of a PR crisis:

Scrum time

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Business is full of buzzwords, and among the buzziest of the last few years is ‘agile’.

Risk management survey 2020 – Crooked timber

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Sponsored by Marsh. The ongoing #MeToo saga within in the legal profession was only a few chapters old last year when our annual risk and professional indemnity report with broker Marsh went to press. Fast forward a year and law firm risk managers and general counsel are faced with a harsher environment to navigate on …

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Tweets by The In-House Lawyer

GC Powerlist: Turkey

Congratulations to all the leading general counsel included in the GC Powerlist: Turkey 2019. Many thanks to everyone who attended the launch event at the fabulous Çırağan Palace Kempinski, Istanbul on Thursday 12 March 2020. Thanks also to Kılınç Law & Consulting for their support on this publication. See who made the list here

GC Powerlist: China 2019

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GC Powerlist: Central America Teams 2019

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GC Powerlist: Central and Eastern Europe 2019

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GC Powerlist: Brazil Teams 2019

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Private Practice Powerlist 2019 – The leading US attorneys with a focus on Mexico

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GC Powerlist: Italy Teams 2019

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GC Powerlist: Switzerland Teams 2019

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GC Powerlist: Australia 2019

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GC Powerlist: Norway 2019

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GC Summit Spain 2021

Tue 5 Oct 2021 | , Spain

Venue: The Westin Palace, Plaza de las Cortes, 7, 28014 Madrid, Spain

Overview

The Legal 500 invites the best in-house counsel and GCs from some of Spain’s most prominent companies to the GC Summit Spain.

Through comprehensive panel discussions, Q&A sessions and the opportunity to meet and engage with fellow in-house and private practice legal luminaries, attendees will be able to hone their understanding of some of the major issues affecting them and the profession as a whole, and discuss these with their contemporaries. Put simply, the GC Summit Spain promises not only to be interesting and insightful, but also an event that will provide practical, tangible benefits to attendees.

The day’s panel discussions will see topics addressed and dissected by legal experts across four panels. Firstly, trademark and anti-counterfeiting efforts will be analysed, before the already-present but ever-growing challenge of cyber security will be unpacked. After this, collective actions and related recovery efforts will receive the attentions of an extremely well-qualified panel. The final panel is still to be confirmed, but also promises to be an engaging and insightful discussion.

These panels are specifically designed to give the audience the right knowledge to handle the challenges and opportunities presented by the corporate legal sector with the best legal strategies designed by experts of the most successful companies in the country.

Agenda

GC Summit Spain
1.15pm	Registration and light lunch
2.00pm	Opening remarks
2.15pm	Best practice benchmarks for trademarks and anti-counterfeitingSafeguarding the intellectual property of their businesses is the foremost concern for many in-house counsel, particularly those at consumer goods companies with strong – and often-pirated – brands. The only way to ensure a successful response to these threats is through enacting a proactive strategy underpinned by robust internal processes. This panel will examine how to go about organizing in-house legal functions to protect their companies’ trademarked goods and intellectual property in the most effective way.
3.10pm	Cyber Security There is scarcely a business functioning that does not consider cyber security threats to be a major concern. For large corporate entities, who often hold vast amounts of customer data on record, the risks are correspondingly larger and will undoubtedly assume greater importance for in-house legal operators as time goes on. How to best approach cyber security issues will be a matter for each individual company as best practices are honed over time, but this expert panel use their vast experience to analyse some of the major considerations for in-house counsel looking to safeguard their companies.
4.00pm	Coffee Break
4.15pm	Collective actions: maximising recovery opportunities Collective actions can cause major losses to a company if the issue is not foreseen or mitigated against, or if recovery efforts are unsuccessful. Despite this, many in-house counsel are unfamiliar with these procedures and run the risk of failing to protect their companies when such a threat develops. This panel will provide practical insight into this less-understood aspect of corporate safeguarding.
5.10pm	Dispute Resolution This panel will outline effective dispute resolution mechanisms, providing insight on a number of perennial questions for in-house counsel faced with a dispute process: Court or Arbitration? When and how to get management and commercial teams on board, and when to seek the advice of external counsel? All these questions and more will be the focus of this expert panel discussion.
6.00pm	Closing remarks
6.10pm	Drinks and canapes

Speakers

David R Scott, Managing partner, Scott & Scott

Vicente Marot, Partner, Andersen Tax & Legal

María González Gordon, IP & Digital Business Partner, CMS

GC Powerlist USA Teams 2021

Thu 23 Sep 2021 | , United States

GC Summer Reception UK 2021

Tue 13 Jul 2021 | , United Kingdom

Venue:

Savage Garden LDN
12th Floor, Doubletree By Hilton Hotel London, Tower Of London, 7 Pepys St, London EC3N 4AF

ARRIVAL:

6.30pm

Time:

6.30pm – 10.00pm

Agenda

GC Summer Reception UK 2021
6.30pm	Arrival and welcome drinks
7.15pm	Speeches
7.30pm	Drinks and networking
10.00pm	Event concludes

GC Summit Dublin 2021

Thu 8 Jul 2021 | , Ireland

GC Powerlist: South Africa 2021

Thu 24 Jun 2021 | , South Africa

GC Summit Nigeria 2021

Tue 22 Jun 2021 | , Nigeria

Venue: The Wheatbaker Lagos, 4 Onitolo Road (Old Lawrence Rd), Ikoyi, Lagos

GC Powerlist: Denmark 2021

Thu 27 May 2021 | , Denmark

Venue: Nimb Hotel, Bernstorffsgade 5, Copenhagen

Agenda

GC Powerlist: Denmark 2021
4.00pm	Arrival and welcome drinks
4.45pm	Speeches
5.00pm	Networking with drinks and canapes
7.00pm	Event concludes

GC Powerlist: Australia Rising Stars 2021

Thu 20 May 2021 | , Australia

GC Disputes Summit Australia 2021

Tue 18 May 2021 | , Australia

Venue: Establishment Ballroom Merivale, 252 George Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Overview

The inaugural GC Disputes Summit Australia will bring together leading GCs and in-house counsel across the country to discuss how the GC community will adapt to the new regulatory and investigations landscape in light of the Hayne Royal Commission. Panel discussions will range from regulatory investigations and enforcements and associated class action risk, to climate change litigation and cross-border recovery and tracing of assets. Attendees can expect high-profile speakers, plenty of time for debate and discussion, and networking drinks to end the day.

Agenda

GC Disputes Summit – Australia
1.30pm	Registrations
2.00pm	Opening remarks
2.10pm	Panel I – The Rise of the Regulators This session will focus attention on the governance challenges faced by corporates when dealing with what can be a simultaneous triad of (1) regulatory investigation and associated punitive enforcement (be it civil and criminal), (2) associated remediation of customers or systems and (3) associated class actions on behalf of customers or shareholders.
3.00pm	Panel II – Climate change litigation – what is on the horizon and how to mitigate risk for your organisation Climate change is no longer just an ethical issue but now also a financial one. To what extent will a failure to disclose risks to the market expose your organisation? Climate change litigation represent a commercial and reputational risk for corporate Australia. In recent years there has been a number of high profile class actions commenced by shareholders overseas relating to climate change issues. There has also been one such action filed in Australia. What developments can we expect to see for climate change litigation in Australia and what steps can you take to ensure your organisation is prepared? Our panel of leading litigation and ESG experts will discuss the developments in this space including what might lie ahead for climate change litigation in Australia.
3.50pm	Coffee Break
4.05pm	Panel III – Fraud prosecution and enforcement Focus will be on: investigation and prosecution of civil fraud (internally within an organisation or against it by external parties); urgent court actions (freezing search orders and recovering confidential information); and cross-border recovery (including enforcement of foreign judgments) and tracing of assets
4.55pm	Panel IV – Managing board, governance, and reputational risk Australian businesses face an increasingly complex framework of established and evolving legislation and regulations concerning civil, criminal and regulatory risks. Coupled with a landscape with more active regulators, dramatic media headlines, potential personal liability, and where “community expectations” serve as a barometer for assessing corporate behaviour, the task for boards and senior executives in effectively managing conduct risk can seem overwhelming. In this panel we look at how the company’s legal team can help navigate that task.
5.50pm	Closing remarks
6.00pm	Drinks and canapes
8.00pm	Event Concludes

Speakers

Chris Pagent, partner, Corrs

Chris focusses on bet-the-company litigation. He specialises in class actions, securities litigation, white collar, product liability and property claims. He regularly acts for leading financial services institutions, disclosing entities, international manufacturers, public instrumentalities, professional service providers, and c-suite officers.

His expertise is acknowledged in many Australian and international directories, including Chambers Asia Pacific, Who’s Who Legal, Doyles’, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and the Australian Financial Review’s Peer Review.

Chris is a member of the Law Council of Australia’s Class Action Committee, the National Product Liability Association and the Defence Research Institute.

Andrew Korbel, partner, Corrs

Andrew is an experienced litigator and has been a trusted adviser to both the private sector and government for more than 20 years. He works with clients to resolve complex and high-value commercial disputes, and protects their interests in inquiries and investigations.

His recent experience ranges from massive corporate collapses to telco network joint venture disputes, and large-scale litigation between government and global pharma.

Andrew also helps importers, exporters and industry bodies to navigate trade investigations, and disputes arising from them, in Australia and internationally.

Mark Wilks, partner, Corrs

A leading litigator who is involved in some of the most valuable litigation in Australia involving assets worth billions of dollars, Mark has more than 20 years’ experience in ‘bet the company’ disputes, and is recognised as a market leader in this area.

His practice primarily focuses on financial services and resources, while his experience also spans a range of other areas including class actions and media. He has also been involved in some of Australia’s largest insolvencies, advising banks, investors, creditors, trustee companies, directors and insolvency professionals.

Mark regularly appears on his clients’ behalf before superior and appeal courts, including the High Court of Australia, and in confidential commercial arbitrations. He has consistently been listed as a leading lawyer by legal directories and publications including Chambers and Partners, Legal 500 Asia Pacific and Best Lawyers.

Mark is a member of the Insolvency and Restructuring Subcommittee at the Law Council of Australia.

Tim Case, partner, McCullough Robertson

Tim is a partner in McCullough Robertson’s litigation and dispute resolution group, where he practices commercial litigation across a range of industries. Tim has a particular interest in the investigation and prosecution of fraud related matters. He also has extensive experience in conducting the defence of regulatory proceedings, as well as the independent investigation of Crime & Corruption Commission complaints.

GC Powerlist: Southeast Asia Teams 2021

Tue 18 May 2021 | , Singapore