About

Michael Riha started his position as general counsel, head of group legal and compliance at Eurofins Scientific Group two years ago, where he is responsible for providing round the clock in-house advice mainly on commercial and corporate law, a broad spectrum of compliance topics as well as specific aspects of M&A transactions. Having gained extensive experience in M&A and prior in-house positions, Riha has set out to further build and develop the group’s legal and compliance function in a decentralised, fast growing international network of laboratories with presence in more than 45 countries. A significant amount of his day-to-day work is focused on strengthening core business aspects, in particular corporate governance, capital markets law compliance matters and providing integral advice on complex international framework customer agreements. Riha has been instrumental in the first-hand experiences with the rising problem of legal and social compliance topics including corruption and bribery. This came about in particular when heading the compliance and audit area of CBR Fashion Group, focusing mainly on countries like Turkey, Greece, India, Bangladesh and China. ‘From that experience, I gained the conviction that compliance in general and anti-corruption compliance is vital for a company and that every single employee needs to continuously contribute to compliance efforts, with legal and compliance teams acting as role models’, explains Riha. He has worked to make progress in these areas, setting up robust processes and enabling his team to develop into a valued partner of the business. Before joining Eurofins Scientific Group, Riha accompanied the IPO of German startup windeln.de and built their in-house legal department. He started his career in private practice, working for Freshfields and Hengeler Mueller with a focus on corporate and M&A.