About

The legal team at CAC 40 distilled beverages producer Pernod Ricard is led by Ian FitzSimons, group legal director and member of the executive board and executive committee. FitzSimon’s role sees him defining and implementing group policies, drafting employee codes of conduct, advising on major transactions and financings, and engaging with governments and regulators. FitzSimons has been general counsel of the Pernod Ricard Group since 2002. Since then, he has built up a legal department across all the strategic countries and regions in which the company has a presence, including Europe, North and South America, Asia (China, India, and Korea) and Australia and New Zealand. The legal team is now composed of 150 employees, including more than 100 lawyers, with a team of 40 based at Pernod Ricard’s headquarters in Paris. The wider legal team has been particularly active in supporting Pernod Ricard’s growth strategy, which has for several years focused on simplifying its portfolio of brands to concentrate on premium brand spirits and wines – for example selling its brandies and Domecq wines to a joint venture owned by Grupo Emperador Spain and Gonzalez Byass. This divestment has been accompanied by strategic investments and acquisitions, including the acquisition of Smooth Ambler, an award-winning distillery based in West Virginia and producer of the Smooth Ambler Contradiction, Old Scout Single Barrel, and other premium spirits, and the acquisition of a controlling stake in German gin Monkey 47 in 2016. The legal team has responded to this intense period of M&A activity by developing what it describes as ‘complex acquisition systems’, for example by establishing joint ventures with entrepreneurs who have developed strong brands. As an international group established in many jurisdictions, Pernod Ricard must find new ways to manage the rapidly accelerating change in global regulations. To combat this the legal team has implemented a number of comprehensive programs that have helped the business adapt to local specificities. For example, in 2015 it introduced a new Code of Business Conduct and implemented a new compliance and anti-corruption program. The legal function has also embraced new technologies as part of its digitalisation strategy. More recently, a digital approach to documentation has been used within the legal team itself, allowing its lawyers to collect, classify and optimise precedents. Protecting Pernod Ricard’s brands – the basis of the company’s market value – is also a key activity of the legal function, and it has innovated in this area by setting up an IP Hub Group along with a programme – known as Blue Lotus – to combat counterfeits and protect its brands. Establishing a common strategy that could be implemented across the group was a key part of these brand-protection initiatives, and the legal team as a whole worked together to devise an approach that could work across all markets. While the whole team has been central to these initiatives, with each member playing a hugely important role, a number of individuals have stood out: Philippe Prouvost, secretary of the board of directors and director of corporate affairs, is credited with managing various matters ranging from corporate governance to M&A; Mathieu Prot, director of intellectual property, has been instrumental in the company’s brand protection strategy, implementing the Blue Lotus programme alongside FitzSimons; and Brian Chevlin, general counsel of Pernod Ricard in the US, the company’s largest market and the one in which it has made many of its recent acquisitions.