Team size: 50 (25 legal counsels, 2 patent attorneys, 5 insurance specialists, 12 compliance specialists across the globe plus back-office staff) 

First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?  

Our legal team’s key mission is to support major global EPC contracts for complex B2B infrastructure projects (such as hydro power plants, pulp mills, renewable energy equipment, steel mill equipment and other industrial applications) from sales, project execution, claims and litigation/ arbitration. We review and support negations for every project starting at a five MEUR level to several hundred MEUR transaction values. Overall annual transaction volumes range from EUR€ five to seven bn annually by the regional team usually roughly half to two thirds of the annual order intake of the global ANDRITZ group. We support strategic business projects through our legal M&A team (on average we buy three- fivecompanies annually) and support key joint development and IP agreements.  

IP Protection, through many ways of legal support, is a key mission as well for our legal team and particularly important in a company with a strong technological footprint. 

Through our global compliance department we are now putting special focus on global supply chains and closely participate in the roll out and implementation of our ESG programme. 

How does your legal strategy change during periods of instability or uncertainty?      

As a multinational company our global business requires our in-house legal team to constantly adjust to trends, new legislations and cope with crisis management. Indeed, crisis management has become a key element of our daily activity (Covid-19, supply chain crisis, Ukraine war, sanctions). Hence, we have developed more tools and routines for legal crisis management and have learned to negotiate and adjust our contracts more often during (multiyear) execution phase than we were used to in the past decade. Legal support for our supply chain issues has also increased in the past years.  

Do you make use of any ‘legal tech’ products, and if so, for which areas of your job do you find it most useful?   

Depending on the field of activity we are using various legal tech instruments for legal department in-house matter management, for e-billing, for AI supported contract review, for management compliance reporting, for administration of our patent portfolio and for managing our corporate housekeeping.