About

In his role at ABB, one of the global leaders in Electronic Manufacturing, Oliver Albrecht not only contends with a diverse case load, but also with constantly demonstrating value to his business partners. Oliver cites the highlight of his in-house career so far as helping ABB come out on top in a multi-jurisdictional litigation. What started out as something ‘relatively overseeable’ turned into a case involving ‘patent infringements, multi-country IP enforcement and industrial espionage’ lasting several years in which ‘many procedures, countries and opponents were involved with criminal investigations leading to police raids and investigative custody’. Ultimately ABB’s success was heavily influenced by the work that Oliver and the team completed, directly contributing to renewed business opportunities for the company in the aftermath of the case.Along with departmental restructuring that has made the team ‘more efficient and productive and given people the feeling of being in the right place’, there have been efforts on specialising the range and depth of technical legal knowledge. Oliver states that they’ve worked towards ‘more specialist know how for everyone in each team’ to add to the ‘comprehensive legal advice to specific business units’. If the know-how already existed then it was considered essential to get better at ‘efficiently making use of the specialist knowledge in litigation, competition, compliance and procurement’.