About

Dr. Michael M. Klose serves as managing counsel at the legal group of Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg. With over 15 years of legal experience in the area of banking and finance, he is responsible for the legal management of an extensive set of Volkswagen’s treasury activities, in particular, the group-wide global cash management (multiple jurisdictions with material daily volumes), various cross-border transaction banking projects with major international banks and accompanying regulatory matters in an ever-expanding environment.

Prior to joining Volkswagen in 2017, Michael started his career in the banking and finance practice groups of Gleiss Lutz in Frankfurt (with secondments in London and Berlin), followed by many years with CMS Hasche Sigle in Hamburg. He was involved in a broad spectrum of restructurings as well as cross-border finance transactions, advising lenders and borrowers principally in the area of asset, project, acquisition, and corporate finance.

Michael is not only an excellent lawyer, but also possesses a perfect and profound understanding of the business needs. Michael repeatedly proved that he can align potentially conflicting interests, no matter how complicated and particularly complex situations are, and put forward elegant and goal-oriented solutions. Highly recognised market participants describe Michael as a “very pragmatic German lawyer” and that “it is always a pleasure to work with him given his solution-oriented approach.”

Michael characterises his broad range of legal responsibility as completing “highly exciting and strategic tasks for the Volkswagen Group in a dynamic, international and intercultural environment”. Michael also emphasises the collegial, trustful, and respectful interaction – within Volkswagen Group as well as with external business partners – which he considers to be essential for a positive outcome of any challenge.

One of his key projects was a global legal review of various cross-border group-internal treasury activities in several jurisdictions with a focus on financial supervisory and corporate law aspects. Michael played a leading role in the legal conception and implementation of new global standards, always with a view to aligning operational interests and legal requirements and thereby ensuring compliance with applicable laws. The importance of this project is, in particular, underlined by the dynamic development in the regulatory environment. In the area of payment services, Michael was one of the key persons in clarifying with the German regulator under which conditions the widespread operation of centralised cash management activities by a company for or on behalf of other group companies (for example, by way of Payment Factories) may be continued without being qualified as a licensable payment business. Not only because of this special expertise, Michael is a valued interlocutor for companies, lawyers, working groups, but also international regulators or ministries or the European Commission. It goes without saying that Michael as well as the competent Volkswagen team continue to carefully follow the ongoing legal developments.