Philippe Chavasse’s journey within Fives, a French company specialised in the export of equipment, plants and turnkey projects, has been extremely noteworthy and impressive. He started his career as a junior legal counsel in 1998 in an engineering company belonging to the Fives Group, advising on matters related to the company’s operations that focused on automotive, logistic, aluminium, steel, oil and gas, energy, cement, sugar and glass.

In 2003 he was appointed as legal counsel of the aluminium and cement division of Fives, and six years later in 2009 he became deputy general counsel of the group. Earning these promotions showed his value to the group, and in 2016 he was appointed general counsel for contracts, litigation and insurance activities. It was here where he started to work on anti-corruption, and drafted anti-corruption rules, providing training sessions on the issue. ‘It helped to promote a culture of sensitiveness to corruption issues in the group’ says Chavasse.

He also developed a software application focused on litigation, enabling better assessment of the efficiency, duration and costs of the various litigation proceedings. Off the back of this he also developed training modules on contract related issues and specific trainings on ethics and confidentiality. Chavasse was integral to creating a newsletter on contracts and legal matters for the group, contributing to develop a better understanding of contracts issues in the company. Amongst his most notable transactions, Chavasse mentions an ICC arbitration proceedings regarding the undue termination of a contract in Geneva.