About

Svein Staalen leads the legal team at Spectrum, a well-established and growing company that provides the global oil and gas industry with seismic data from its various locations in Norway, the USA, UK and Australia amongst others. Despite a tricky market environment, which is at the mercy of global commodity prices that have declined in the recent past, Spectrum’s resilient legal function has been proven to produce results even under testing circumstances. Staalen cites the team’s impact as being connected with streamlining and improving processes, as they concern themselves with the smooth running of the company’s business operations. Supporting the company’s results in this way, Staalen claims that the huge improvement has been concurrent with the legal team going from zero lawyers in 2011 to the three it contains today. Focussing on processes connected with compliance and anti-corruption for working in what Staalen calls ‘challenging countries’, other challenges have presented themselves to the team in the form of the acquisition of the Fugro seismic data library and its subsequent integration with rest of the business. The team can cite tangible results contributing to business finances; they have previously assisted in a huge way by achieving around $1.5m in recoveries from a debt collection case. The team’s worth is also displayed via their results and internal business recognition; the legal department is represented on the executive management team and is involved in most business strategic discussions.