In late 2017, Sir James Dyson announced his company would invest around £2.5bn to bring an electric car to market by 2020. Big numbers, but then Dyson spends several million pounds each week on its R&D strategy. With 400 engineers currently working on the project and a new purpose-built facility being constructed just down the road from Dyson’s headquarters in Wiltshire, the Dyson car is far from a pipe dream. For the legal team, says GC Martin Bowen, finding ways to make it a Dyson car is essential. ‘Our designers and engineers excel at producing market-leading products, we have the task of blending that into a much more strictly-regulated regime of law and standards. This sounds like the boring side of it, but we actually find it very exciting. The culture of innovation that surrounds us means we are willing as a legal team to take on issues others may see as a stretch too far. Our lawyers have to understand that when they engage any client base, especially an engineering client base, their role is to help produce a product that is both different and better. Having lawyers who can contribute to that mission is part of our success.’ But it was the legal team’s work on one of Dyson’s more established product lines that caught the eye. When the EU proposed legislation on testing and labelling vacuum cleaners’ energy performance, Dyson’s lawyers – led by GC of Europe, the Middle East and Africa Gwen Mahé – spotted a problem in their proposed methodology. Lobbying from other manufacturers had led the regulators to test models when empty. As a result, Dyson’s technology – designed to maintain energy performance as the vacuum cleaner collects dirt – would not receive a fair rating. ‘People don’t tend to challenge the EU Commission on regulation very often,’ comments Bowen, ‘but we felt very strongly about pursuing a seemingly abstruse technical argument. Fortunately, Sir James was very much behind us and we had his full support. We are lucky that Dyson as an organisation likes to challenge and is not afraid of losing.’ Having lost the case in the first stage before the European General Court, which ruled that the Commission’s work was within the ambit of the original directive, Dyson appealed to the European Court of Justice, which subsequently ruled in its favour, giving it an opportunity to put the case for revised regulations at a hearing in March this year. Paul Rawlinson, global chair of Baker McKenzie, comments: ‘Bowen expects his legal team to embrace the pioneering, innovation-driven Dyson approach to legal issues and this was clear when representing Dyson in the EU Court of Justice litigation.’ ‘Blending different skills together – not always purely legal skills – is essential for rapidly growing or innovative businesses like Dyson,’ concludes Bowen. ‘We need to make sure all departments, from marketing to engineering, are talking the same language. Lawyers are there to make sure nothing gets lost in translation and to do that they have to be embedded in the business. When we look to recruit, we look for good legal skills and risk awareness, but we also want people who are desperate to get out there and sit with the business to help make it work.’