Team size: Four

What are the most significant cases, projects and transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

One of our distributors ceased operations with outstanding accounts payables against us. Given their apparent lack of ability to pay us, we filed multiple seizure action cases with the court to collect our accounts receivables directly from hospitals and other institutions that purchased our products from this wholesaler by seizing the wholesaler’s accounts receivables against its customers. Also, in connection with Abbott’s global acquisition of Cardiovascular Systems (CSI), Abbott negotiated with Otsuka Medical Devices (“Otsuka”) to terminate the Distribution Agreement between CSI and Otsuka for exclusive distribution of CSI’s products in Japan. Abbott Legal supported such negotiations and successfully negotiated an amicable separation and a Termination Agreement with Otsuka.

Lastly, to raise awareness of the importance of glucose monitoring for diabetic patients, Abbott has donated its glucose monitors to local governments pursuant to their requests to be used at health check-ups and pharmacies. Abbott Legal advised the business to ensure that such donation by Abbott and the proposed sue of glucose monitors would not violate applicable laws such as off-label promotion, advertisement regulations, and the Medical Practitioners’ Act.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

In times of instability or crisis, I believe that it is paramount that we act or react based on accurate information and as such, the first step is to understand the situation and obtain accurate facts. In such times, it may not always be possible to obtain all the facts, so as a leader, we also need to make appropriate risk-based decisions, even with incomplete information. In such situation, legal risk needs to be assessed even with uncertain facts and circumstances, explained to the business including the consequences for non-compliance, advise what Legal considers the best course of action, and support the company leadership’s decision-making.

Given the current geopolitical shifts and growing uncertainties around international free trade, has your company’s risk profile evolved, and are you taking measures to address these challenges?

Both the sanctions against Russia and Trump’s tariffs had an impact on Abbott’s operations. With respect to the former, the sanctions are obviously a challenge for us to export our medical and diagnostic devices to Russia, which may be necessary to protect and maintain the health and well-being of Russian residents. This requires dialogue and coordination with various governments and regulators. Similarly, given that Abbott manufactures products in many different countries, some of which are exported to the US, Trump’s tariffs may have an impact on the location of the manufacturing sites going forward, especially if it becomes more certain that some of these tariffs may stay for an extended period.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

In most cases, we use external counsel for subject matters that the in-house team does not have the expertise to do. These include matters that do not come up on a regular basis or in the course of our ordinary business, such as bankruptcy issues/debt collection. In other matters where we have good in-house knowledge, such as anti-trust and healthcare regulatory laws, we may seek the expertise of outside counsel for issues and matters that are not obviously black or white and require extensive research and subject matter expertise. When selecting outside counsel, having subject matter expertise is merely a starting point. We also evaluate whether the advice is practical (merely stating that “there is a legal risk” is not sufficient) and actionable. We also highly value outside counsel who understand our business and industry.