About

The legal team at the French arm of the German multinational Bayer HealthCare is headed by Laurent Pitet, who has served in the position of general counsel and compliance officer since 2009. Pitet is supported by a team of seven in-house lawyers, spread over three sites with each lawyer responsible for a sector of activity and a legal field. Exemplifying the team’s commitment to partnering with the business, Pitet says that ‘each member of the legal team must know the products [they are] responsible for and the teams that deal with them in a proactive vision of business partnering’. As part of this commitment each legal team member spends a brief period of time ‘on the ground in contact with healthcare professionals’ to keep abreast of the needs and challenges faced by the business. Collectively the team can boast a number of significant achievements, including conducting successful litigations in tax proceedings. As the department plays an essential role in fulfilling compliance and ethical rules in France, another key success has been implementing preventative and curative actions in the business. The team also enjoys the status as a ‘full-fledged partner in the business’, not least because of its ethos of viewing legal conformity in its activities as a necessary prerequisite but the objective. ‘The objective is to accompany the business to achieve its objectives’, says Pitet, adding that, ‘to do this, knowledge of the legal rules and internal procedures is accompanied by the real expertise of the business concerned’. Pitet also highlights his seven colleagues in the department for their exceptional work and for having ‘a real impact on legal activity and respect for the ethics with which the group conducts its activities’.