Team size: 21

Key team members: Christine Bruhn Tuxen — general counsel; Marie Hovel Hansen — head of corporate commercial and IP legal; Michal Karasiewicz — head of legal, EMEA and APAC; Anne-Kathrine Basbøll — head of global legal compliance; Christel May-Worre —head of M&A legal

Can you give an idea of the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Historically, Chr. Hansen has grown organically, but the company has been very active within the last four years of M&A. The completed transactions have primarily been significant share purchase agreements with much-related work for the global legal function regarding project management, due diligence, negotiation, deal documentation, transition and integration work, and post-closing claim handling—recent transaction work done by Chr. Hansen includes the sale and carve-out of the Natural Colours Division to EQT Private Equity, acquisition of US, German and Austrian targets, plus the proposed (to date largest Danish) statutory merger of Chr. Hansen Holding with Novozymes (subject to regulatory approvals).

The global legal team is a key driver and contributor to the transaction work done by Chr. Hansen. The global legal team has also successfully driven litigation within several core areas for Chr. Hansen (€100m+ cases) within IP in strong collaboration with the business. In addition, the team has supported negotiations of several larger partnership and collaboration agreements with customers and business partners, as well as developed several global contract templates within core business areas such as R&D, distribution and sale, driving scalable legal advice and global risk alignment. Within compliance, the global legal team has successfully launched several international compliance programmes benchmarked against the DOJ’s best practices, including launching innovative targeted adaptive e-learning. Strong compliance by design principles drives scalable compliance solutions with minimum business impact.

How has your legal team progressed on issues of diversity and inclusion (D&I), and what are the main benefits or challenges of working in a diverse environment?

The global legal team has seven nationalities across three continents, 40/60 gender diversity and an age range with equal parts of the team <30, 30-40 and >50 years. The main benefit is a higher performing team due to the different points of view, skill sets and experience. New ways of thinking and inherent digital skills often come with younger employees. They are powerful, combined with the experience, resilience and calmness that often come with more mature employees. The only challenge we have experienced is the different time zones providing a very limited timeslot for global meetings. To leverage the benefits of diversity and obtain a high-performing team, the team must be able to include all and create an environment of trust. If the team cannot build trust, a diverse team will perform poorer than a non-diverse team.

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

The key is investing time in truly understanding the business strategy to understand how to create value. With a seat at the table, the key to success is to make legal relevant. Legal is one of the few functions in a company that holds a 360-degree view of the business. Suppose the legal function utilises this understanding and does not limit itself to being the ‘old school legal counsel in the corner’ waiting to be called upon and only remaining within the legal box. In that case, it will be a strong business partner. In-house legal counsels are professional problem solvers with strong analytical and structural skills trained in risk mitigation. Those skills can be used outside the core legal area. Strong business partnering influences the decision making resulting in the business not ending up in the dreaded ‘no-situations’.