About

The legal and regulatory function at mobile operator Three Ireland is led by general counsel Patrick Foyle, and consists of a team of six lawyers and four non-lawyers. Foyle describes them as ‘an excellent team of seasoned legal professionals’, who have 100 years of combined industry experience. In 2015 O2’s Irish operations were merged with the Three Ireland network, after an earlier acquisition. Perhaps the biggest challenge for the legal team on an operational level was integrating two separate legal teams into a single entity, creating a new legal and regulatory function. This included expanding, absorbing and integrating with the O2 business, and also getting on top of the new regulatory issues and consolidating processes to a single set of policies. ‘It was a gradual process that took some months, but it was important that we built an established, stable perspective that had a strong sense of compliance and governance to the company’, says Foyle. In addition, one innovation that the legal team has overseen was introducing a secondment program which meant that an individual from the customer relations management team joined the legal team as a secondee dealing with regulatory requirements with customers. This meant that they have direct insight into the function, the collaborative approach allowed the organisation to better understand customer needs. The team are highly valued to the business; they are a key advisor on all material transactions that the business considers, are represented on the senior management team and provide great overall legal and regulatory stewardship.