Team size: 100 in France, 170 worldwide

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The Renault Group’s Legal department was involved in very high-stake transactions in the past three years, the most significant of which are:

The definitive agreements regarding the historic rebalancing of Renault-Nissan cross-shareholding, governance and organisation, negotiated and executed throughout the year 2023.

Three large carve-out transactions, two currently ongoing and one already completed that will result in the creation end 2023 of a new leading powertrain technology company called “Horse” with the Chinese manufacturer Geely. Renault Group was the first CAC 40 company to exit Russia, selling in May 2022 its former subsidiary Renault Russia and its stake in Russia’s leading manufacturer of Lada vehicles, Avtovaz;

Additionally, our team worked on the creation of a number of joint-venture companies, including (i) “Hyvia”, a JV with Plug Power created in June 2021 and dedicated to new hydrogen mobility, (ii) a JV with Minth Group in June 2022 to produce battery casings for electric vehicles and, still ongoing, (iii) “Flexis”, a JV to share development costs and maximise customer coverage of new generation of light-commercial vehicles;

Also, on the creation of “The Future is Neutral” in October 2022, the first company operating across the entire automotive circular economy value chain;

Commercial agreement with Qualcomm entered in November 2022 to co-develop a centralised automotive platform for software-defined vehicles and extend their future cooperation to Renault’s upcoming new electric and software company, “Ampere”;

Long-term commercial partnership entered in April 2023, with Verkor, to produce and supply high-performance low-carbon batteries.

How do you see the general counsel role evolving in France over the next five-ten years?  

The general counsel’s most important role in the next five-ten years is to envision the legal department of the future – which will be more integrated at both strategic and operational levels of the company – by developing new talents who will be willing to take measured risks with business acumen, innovate in their legal approach of operational topics, and foster the use of legal technology. General counsels must anticipate the revolution introduced using artificial intelligence (AI) tools in terms of productivity of the legal function and enhance the focus the legal team on value-added tasks.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?  

New technologies, such as AI or blockchain, have the potential for enhancing the role of the general counsel and the in-house lawyer, if we decide to see them as unique opportunities to work better and faster. Renault Group has placed new technologies at the heart of its innovation strategy in the automotive sector and beyond.

Renault Group’s legal department foresees that the technology behind Chat GPT could have the most useful impact on the in-house legal work, by making available to business functions certain pre-trained operational tools for limited risk assignments (for example, generating and tailoring basic contract templates such as for non-disclosure agreements, answering straightforward legal and/or compliance questions, quickly assessing legal, compliance and ESG-related risks based on publicly available data related to geography, geopolitics, finance, business environment, state governance).

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

Informed risk taking, curiosity, adaptability, business acumen, innovation, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, resilience and finally, managerial skills.