How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

With an eye on current and upcoming matters, focus on key impact (“what do we want to achieve and why”, what is a subsequent measure), close cross-functional coordination, collaboration and early syndication with other departments such as Tax, Compliance/Risk/Ethics, global trade and sanctions, clear prioritisation of content within the specified timelines and early involvement through and close coordination with leadership;

Key factor: it has been proven again that diverse teams are a key driver for the best outcome, especially in order not to leave any essential perspective or point of reference unlit. The company’s commitment to the multidimensional AD&I efforts and establishment of internal affiliation networks.

The legal department’s mission is closely intertwined with the broader business strategy. Following our deputy general counsel’s aspiration, the firm has built a global world class legal function with a variety of local and global experts. The legal experts have guided the various stakeholder in past crises and advised on appropriate immediate and long-term measures. Legal serve the leadership as trusted business partner.

How have you integrated technology into your legal processes, and what impact has this had on efficiency and compliance?

We have implemented a legal tech team globally which continuously reviews tasks and suggests opportunities to digitalise low to medium complex processes, both with internal IT resources as well as external options. It led to freeing up processes from smaller, repetitive tasks with limited risk and additionally ensured a standard on similar tasks across the region. One outcome for example was the implementation of a self-serve portal in the legal intranet which freed up capacity in our frequent tasks.