About

After several years at a leading City of London law firm working on high profile competition cases, Richard Burnley moved to a senior associate position in Ofcom’s legal team, working on some of the largest telecoms litigation cases in the UK. He came to the EBU at the end of 2010 as competition counsel and became head of regulatory at the end of 2012. Four years later he was promoted to director of legal, and by 2018 was director of legal and policy, covering both the legal department in Geneva and the EBU Brussels office. Burnley is an expert in advising on commercial and regulatory issues and defending the company in high value litigations. He has been instrumental in building a service-led regulatory team to provide unique expert advice to member clients at EBU, as well as heading up the spin-off of the company’s commercial services into a dedicated subsidiary. He identifies that, ‘working with the business as in-house counsel on these and other issues above all teaches the importance of clear, practical legal solutions that work’. Since taking over, Burnley has managed the legal department with client value and efficiency at the core, ensuring a heavy reduction in external legal spend by internalising legal advice to the business and building a commercially focused team that is both technical and solutions-driven. At the same time in this role, he has overseen the implementation of the EBU’s flagship new event, the European Championships, as well as contractual negotiations with over 30 sport federations.