France Teams 2017
| BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas
One of the most prominent financial institutions globally, BNP Paribas is a truly transnational operation, employing around 189,000 employees internationally as of 2015, with total revenues topping €43bn in 2016. Leading the company’s in-house legal function is group general counsel Georges Dirani, an individual with a deep understanding of the business gleaned from six years in his current position, prior to which he advised the bank in an external capacity as a partner and founding member of Herbert Smith Freehills’ Paris chapter. The legal team of BNP Paribas, in common with almost all global financial institutions, has faced a greatly expanding regulatory framework that has been a major focus of the team’s attention and has required them to remain flexible and innovative in their responses. While dealing with this ever-present and long term challenge, the legal team is also required to support and safeguard the company’s shorter term business goals, with the result that the team is exceptional at achieving multiple objectives simultaneously. Recent examples of large scale deals are plentiful and diverse, including the May 2017 announcement that BNP is due to acquire a 95% stake in French online banking company Compete-Nickel, and their acquisition of Mumbai-based brokerage firm Sharekhan in November 2016. BNP Paribas is blessed with excellent legal talent throughout its divisions, with the Equity Capital Markets (ECM) legal team, led by Benoit Faure, coming in for particular praise. Frédéric Lorin, a legal advisor in the ECM team, reported that the ‘most significant innovation we have been a part of is the introduction of synthetic convertible bonds, as we were the first in Europe to do this. Now all the European banks propose this kind of convertible bond’. As well as this, the team had a large part to play in BNP’s leading of the IPO of Belgian-German chip-making company X-Fab Silicon Foundries, which Lorin describes as ‘the most important IPO in France this year’.
