What are your main responsibilities as the deputy general counsel of your organisation?

Like many of my colleagues, I wear a few hats. As DGC, I am mainly responsible for running the global department and setting its strategy as a deputy to our group GC. I also lead the global commercial legal team which is responsible for any commercial legal issues covering both sales and purchase side. As GC for one of our divisions and the global procurement function, I serve as the global GC with end responsibility for all legal matters globally. Being based in Switzerland, the Swiss team that is located with me here is mainly in charge of European matters for trade compliance and commercial. In 2020-21, during the pandemic, I was involved in the sale of one existing subsidiary company of Huntsman and the purchase of two new companies to our portfolio.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Given that our European business operation headquarters are situated in expensive locations including Switzerland and Belgium, our legal team is expected to be not only traditional legal advisors but also business partners interacting with our high-profile clients. Putting this in perspective, Huntsman started to implement Global Business Services allowing us to find commercial lawyers in more cost-effective locations with similar skills and talents. Ultimately, the skills that can justify having a lawyer in a more expensive locations are business partnering, including strategic thinking. Ultimately, I believe every lawyer wants to be helpful and to add value in what they do, but business partnering relies on an extensive knowledge and a keen focus on the company’s goals and initiatives. Doing exactly that has unlocked a strategic thinking in our team to come up with a new approach which relies on customer categorization, where we focus mainly and almost exclusively on providing legal services when it relates to the highest category of customers. The lower categories will be served by automated and standardised services. This allows a razor-sharp focus on where we can add value for the benefit of our organisation.

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

The absence of a Swiss-European common approach is hurting businesses like ours as we have to keep on top of an ever-growing list of rules and regulations on both sides of the equation. Likewise, the volume and complexity of legal challenges of ESG, privacy and other topics will only continue to rise, and it is not always possible for an inhouse team with limited resources to try to keep up with the fast-changing rules of multiple jurisdictions.