Team size: Circa 200

Major legal advisers: BonelliErede, Jones Day, Latham & Watkins, Sullivan & Cromwell

Can you tell us a little about your significant accomplishments over the last few years, as a team or by yourself?

During the past few years, our legal department has been involved in multiple ventures. Of those, I would highlight the €50bn merger between Essilor and Luxottica, where we dealt, at a first stage with transaction negotiations, which included an antitrust approval process in 20 different jurisdictions, and at a second stage, characterised by a 3-year progressive implementation process, based on a complex joint governance system. During this later stage, severe governance crisis arose, including litigation among the parties, and board change proposals made by minority shareholders. Our legal team was directly involved in helping the company overcome these issues. Another significant accomplishment was the €8bn acquisition of GrandVision, where our team negotiated and closed the transaction, managing the antitrust approval process in 8 jurisdictions. Additionally, we defended antitrust cases in countries such as China, France and Turkey, as well as class action cases in the US. Lastly, I was responsible for organising and managing the worldwide legal team through two successive multi-jurisdictional integrations, Essilor and Luxottica, followed by EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision.

What do you predict will be the biggest change to the legal market in France, in the next few years?

The biggest change will be directly connected to the increasing role of artificial intelligence, which will assist the daily practice of law, contractual review, litigation management, among others, allowing lawyers to become more time-efficient and focus on the high value-added services

What will the main focus of your company be over the next few months and how do you intend to assist with this?

Our main focus is still on the integration of Essilor and Luxottica and GrandVision, meaning that we are still working on simplifying the organisation, integrating the teams and the businesses to be able to offer a full set of products and services to our clients, and drawing the maximum out of our vertically integrated group. The legal department, with its transversal view of all the activities of the group, has a unique role to play in such an integration. It will require the full review and mergers of the approximately 1000 entities that we currently have in the group around the world, the review and strategic amendments to our product distribution policies, the adjustment of the legal department to wholesale and retail activities, including litigations and contractual practices across the globe.