About

An Italian company dealing with the diagnosis, application and marketing of hearing solutions, Amplifon was founded in 1950 and is a market leader worldwide present in 22 countries. Amplifon operates through a network of approximately 9,900 points of sale, comprising 4,200 retail outlets, 3,800 service centres and more than 1,900 network affiliates, accounting altogether for over 12,600 employees. Group legal and corporate affairs officer Federico Dal Poz says that to deal with the inter-jurisdictional operations they have launched a global project to assess legal needs, spends and habits of all the Amplifon countries which do not have in-house legal capabilities. ‘We had a survey filled in by all those countries and are currently travelling around to meet in person with all such countries’ general managers and all the main law firms each country primarily work with. We have also created a checklist of high-level legal topics which we require each country’s external lawyer to be aware of when working for an Amplifon subsidiary’. The legal department led by Dal Poz includes three teams: a corporate team and two local teams based respectively in Italy and in the US (countries which are highly relevant for the Amplifon group). The Amplifon corporate legal team, managed directly by Dal Poz, is made up of three lawyers and works in strict connection with the Italian and US legal teams. Dal Poz reveals that the team has undergone a large deal of renovation in order to integrate and restructure the department, among others by (i) strengthening the Italy legal team by making it a direct report to the Italy general manager, and (ii) reorganising the US legal team by hiring a new US head of legal. Dal Poz adds: ‘The renovation process of the legal department is just starting. We plan to expand the scope of our analysis and action to APAC during 2018, possibly by creating a local in-house legal function there (probably in Australia)’. Describing themselves as the “go-to” law firm for their colleagues the legal team is central to all extraordinary transactions, large commercial agreements, M&A’s and partnerships and is always involved in any related discussions internally or externally. Often certain negotiation points are structured according to hints given by the legal team. In addition, the legal team manages all corporate governance affairs, also by making an impact on all aspects affected by the new EU market abuse regulation (MAR) which has been in force since 2016. Compliance with MAR is paramount to the Amplifon group as a listed entity, and requires continuing monitoring and maintenance of all policies and procedures.