About

A company which is among the most famous in the world, Airbus boasts a legal and compliance team to match its stellar reputation, with approximately 450 individuals globally, Airbus has as many legal and compliance resources at its command as many full-service law firms. The highly respected John Harrison is the overall leader of the Airbus legal and compliance function in his position as general counsel, corporate secretary and member of the executive committee. The team also has a number of departmental heads responsible for specific practice areas (for example, Rob Geckle for legal operations) or business lines within the Airbus group or regions (for example, Andreas Riecker for Airbus Defence & Space, Jean-Pascal Meo for Airbus Helicopters or Marc Wellhausen in Southeast Asia). Harrison describes the Airbus legal function’s overall values as ‘unity through teamwork, integrity, customer focus, reliability, respect and creativity. The teams are passionate about the products and what they do, they are engaged and they are team players’. Marina Peudru, Harrison’s head of office, explains further: ‘We promote mobility between functions and, geographically, we provide training to our lawyers’. Airbus’ legal department has, unsurprisingly given the size and diversity of the company’s activities, been a hive of activity over the past two years. Edouard Eltvedt, vice president of special projects, led the project with Bombardier to engage in a joint venture with regards to the C-Series aircraft, which would see this Bombardier-designed aircraft join the Airbus fleet as the A220. This was one of the most famous business moves in the aviation sector in recent years and was described as ‘both the deal of the century for the European giant [Airbus] and a lifeline for Bombardier’ by Aviation Week. Alongside this, the team has embarked upon notable internal technology and digitalisation projects with the IP team of Alistair Scott, has conducted a comprehensive compliance review led by head of compliance Sylvie Kandé de Beaupuy, and Karl Hennessee’s litigation team plays a key part in the WTO trade dispute regarding subsidies in the US for Airbus’ rival Boeing. The legal sales team of Magali Collet has also been central to the major milestone that the company reached in May 2019, when Airbus delivered its 12,000th aircraft – one of the new A220 aircraft from the Bombardier deal – to Delta Air Lines. Going forward, the Airbus legal function is looking to continue strengthening itself even further, particularly through expanding the capabilities of the compliance department and a rolling out of legal and business technology, including a high tech “digital cockpit” tool which allows all relevant corporate information from around the vast group to be available at the touch of a button for the legal corporate department of David Zakin.