About

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) is a leading marine seismic survey and data processing company operating in all of the major oil and natural gas offshore basins worldwide and is headquartered in Oslo. A public company with a number of subsidiaries, PGS is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and has a market capitalisation of approximately NOK 12bn as of August 2018. The company has three sections of operation; multi-client, marine contract, and external imaging and employs around 1,250 employees across these endeavours, in addition to owning or managing a fleet of 14 seismic acquisition vessels with offices and a presence in 15 countries worldwide. PGS employs a legal department that currently counts nine lawyers and one paralegal spread across its main business office locations in Oslo, London, Houston and Kuala Lumpur. The department’s primary mission is to facilitate PGS business, give guidance and provide global legal support to the business, and help manage and mitigate legal risks for the company. It is headed by the general counsel Lars Mysen, who reports directly the CEO. The legal department has three heads of legal separated into geographical remits across Europe and the UK, Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America. Each head of legal has first-hand responsibility of any legal matter arising within their region, including contractual and regulatory affairs as well as dispute resolution and negotiations. The department also employs a chief IP counsel, a vice president internal audit and chief compliance officer who has a team of four employees. All of the lawyers and their teams report to the general counsel who has initiated a joint-case handling work platform to bring all of the lawyers together across regions. This vision-articulation has been developed over several team workshops between the lawyers. The culture in the legal department has in recent years been very positivistic with an atmosphere enabling open and frank discussions on new and innovative ways of working. Asked to describe the department, Mysen highlights that the lawyers in PGS ‘are senior, experienced and competent, and perform their duties precisely in line with our core values. The legal department in PGS is a lean, effective and valuable contributor to the business of PGS. We focus on being flexible and dynamic with a business and result oriented mindset’. In 2017, the company reported an annual turnover of US$850m.