About

Groupe PSA is the third-largest automobile manufacturer in Europe, and has noticeable aspirations to become the market leader in the future. Mark Rollinger, chief legal officer for Groupe PSA, has built a strong team since joining the group in 2013. Although the team may be considered small relative to competitors of a similar revenue, its efficiency and ability to expertly support the company in a highly impressive manner is respected throughout the industry. After a 2016 rebrand from PSA Peugeot Citroën to Groupe PSA, the company stated that it would be entering a period of geographical expansion through organic growth and active acquisition; initially targeting the Indian, American, Canadian, and ASEAN markets. The team’s support has been evident during PSA’s bid to acquire the Opel and Vauxhall brands from General Motors (GM) for $2.2bn. The deal, announced in February but is still pending, will include the brands, six assembly plants, five component-manufacturing plants, an engineering centre in Germany and approximately 40,000 employees. Should the acquisition from GM be successful, it will make PSA the second-largest automobile manufacturer in Europe – meaning a certain degree of competition approval work will be need from Rollinger and team. As an extension of this deal PSA is reportedly entering into a 50-50 joint venture with BNP Paribas to purchase GM’s financing division. This will have added an extra layer of complexity to the deal, with the legal team well-placed to finalise the agreement thanks to a large amount of experience dealing with the high number of joint ventures and partnerships that PSA have. One of the most impactful joint ventures has been PSA’s partnership with Total, which was recently renewed and will see a joint marketing campaign to promote joint customer satisfaction. The PSA team has a breadth and strength of expertise within it, and throughout the GC Powerlist research process a number of nominations were received for different divisions within the team. For example Eric Auger, legal affairs manager of the commerce department, received particular praise from a private practice source for being ‘a very good manager’ with a ‘good overview of the job and with a practical view of the law’.