About

French insurance giant AXA is one of the foremost global financial companies, holding a particularly salient position in the international corporate landscape through exposure to the most important markets around the world. Demonstrating the company’s importance in the financial sector, a significant part of AXA’s operations also lie in its investment management arm. This division retains an exceptionally large and well-drilled cadre of legal talent to draw from within their in-house ranks, with 42 individuals in their French legal team part of a global total of 70. The team is led by overall general counsel Aymeric Flamant and supported in France by legal business head Charlotte Brette and corporate legal head Catherine Testot, with the team expertly managing business operations within what Flamant describes as ‘a regulatory environment which is becoming more significant and complex’. Among the most important new regulatory changes that the AXA Investment Managers legal team have had to navigate are the single European regulatory framework Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities (UCITS V), Alternative Investment Fund Management (AIFM), Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) as well as European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). In order to continue to achieve the consistently high standards that have marked them out, the team has prized a ‘solution-oriented mode, while always managing risks appropriately in order to create value and avoid value destruction’, ultimately ‘to protect AXA Investment Managers’ best interests’ Emphasis is placed on ‘a well-recognised team, highly praised by internal clients for high quality work, engagement and positive mind-set and behaviour’. This is particularly true of the heads of the mandates and distribution and capital markets and derivatives teams with whom they most regularly operate. Towards this end, the legal team collaborates ‘on the business side in support of key deals or projects [and] on the corporate side with M&A, joint ventures, and corporate governance matters’.