Team size: 30

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

The legal team has been involved in assisting in the numerous M&A deals ASR has executed over the past years, including the acquisition of the Brand New Day IORP.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

The pandemic has ensured, partly due to accelerated digitisation and working from home, that we no longer sit at the physical conference table at the business. Despite this, the house counsel were excellently able to maintain digital contact with both internal and external parties and to bring processes to a successful conclusion. Good consultancy skills are indispensable. Communication and being a connecting link between legal teams, staff departments and other disciplines and business has become even more important for general counsel and their legal department due to the pandemic.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

Besides providing excellent legal services throughout the company’s business, delivering on digitisation and sustainability is and will remain the focus of the company. We actively participate in the processes involved and thus contributed to the development of the company in these areas.

What do you feel are the pros and cons of an in-house legal role compared to a private practice one?

In-house counsel is usually much closer to the business, thus understand much better how the operation works. They have a good network within the company and have a more practical and pragmatic approach. The legal team is very much aware of the strategic objectives of the company, and they have the capacity to act on them. In-house counsel not only writes advice but is also often involved in the actual implementation and monitoring of projects and solutions. This can also be a disadvantage; a slightly greater distance sometimes helps in providing independent advice.

In a changing financial landscape, how does the company remain competitive against new phenomena such as fintech and blockchain, and how does the legal team assist with this?

As a department, we try to follow all relevant developments as closely as possible. Following regular training courses in this area, including seminars or webinars, we invite speakers, have periodic consultations with the innovation teams whilst discussing along the industry-wide theme with various initiatives in this area.