Team size: 90

Major legal advisers: Clifford Chance, Latham & Watkins, Jones Day, Allen & Overy, Gide, Bredin Prat, Norton Rose

Can you tell us a little about your significant accomplishments over the last few years, as a team or by yourself?

During the past few years, our legal department has been a part of multiple significant achievements. In 2017, we participated in the acquisition of Maersk Oil & Gas, which was concluded in 2018. Additionally, in 2018, we were part of the acquisition negotiations of Engie LNG, and of the public takeover bid for Direct Énergie in 2019, as well as of the acquisition of Anadarko’s Mozambique LNG project, in the context of the public takeover bid by Oxy on Anadarko. On competition law, the Dutch Competition Authority recognised that a joint venture created for the purpose of storing CO2 can be exempted from certain antitrust constraints, in the interest of consumers based on energy transition and need to fight against climate change.

Our legal department has also dealt with its first cases of duty of vigilance litigation in France, which is connected to large companies’ environmental responsibilities. More on climate, we supported our board of directors in presenting our company’s strategy in respect of sustainable development and climate transition to the advisory votes of our shareholders, in 2021 and 2022.

Have any recent political, economic or regulatory changes impacted your work? How are you dealing with this?

Expectations of stakeholders and a changing legislative and regulatory framework have heightened the level of scrutiny to which our company is exposed and have also triggered the devising and implementation of a transformation strategy for our group. We have integrated the need to stabilise our oil production by 2030, at the latest, and plan a decline of our oil production, with growth coming in equal parts from gas and renewables. A net zero ambition for 2050 has been set and we have published detailed information on key milestones, in terms of GHG emissions’ reduction, and shown what our energy mix could look like in 2050.

Today, TotalEnergies is among the top 5 renewable investors in the world, and number 1 in France. This has had significant impacts from a legal perspective, with the creation of an ESG legal team within the corporate legal department to advise our climate division and our social engagement division. We have also participated in progressive regulatory evolutions through positive engagement and advocacy, for instance by supporting for the EU draft directive on sustainable reporting.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing war, have led western democracies to adopt stringent sanctions against Russia. A crisis management team and processes have been set up in our company, under the co-steer of the legal department. Also, TotalEnergies has set out precise principles of conduct going beyond sanctions’ compliance, to be fully transparent in respect of our Russian related operations and the need to follow the EU public policies in matters of energy supply.